


All Eyes On You

by CheerUpLovely



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: F/M, Gen, Originally Posted on Tumblr, Prompt Fic, Prompt Fill, Tumblr Prompt, fic requests
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-12-27
Updated: 2017-10-30
Packaged: 2018-05-09 18:29:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 130
Words: 164,008
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5550851
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CheerUpLovely/pseuds/CheerUpLovely
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fic requests from tumblr under yespleasehawkeye.tumblr.com (prompts can be sent there in the asks!)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Girls Night In 101

**Author's Note:**

> Oliver Queen gets a lesson in cheering up a friend

There are some things you don’t expect to see on a Friday night.

Oliver Queen with bright pink toenails is one of them. 

The week started on a high. Sure, it was going to be an insanely busy week, but Felicity’s prepared for that, and she’d had the anticipation of a girls night in on Friday. It wasn’t their usual Friday activity, but with everything feeling so tense lately, they’d decided it was needed. Laurel, Thea and Lyla were an unmovable force when they put their mind to something, and a girls night in was no different.

To tell the truth, Felicity was in desperate need of a girls night in. There were some pains in life that could only be healed by simultaneous girlish laughter, ice cream, trashy movies and several bottles of wine. There was something harmonic in female company when the world felt a little too heavy, and this week? Heavy was an understatement. So she needed to mourn the loss of her favourite heels (now broken) from Tuesday’s trip down the stairs, she needed to don her pyjamas to cover up the bruise of smacking her hip into the table edge on Thursday and she absolutely needed to forget all about everything that happened on Wednesday. Just all of it.

So she was disappointed when the first text message came in from Thea. An emergency came up that she had to deal with. Felicity couldn’t even blame her for that, she was working hard to get her club up and running again.

Laurel’s message came mid-afternoon. A new case came up that would need her entire focus over the weekend. Lyla’s message came ten minutes after, John was out of town and Sara was running a fever.

No problem, maybe another time, she’d replied to each of them.

She tried not to be disappointed; they were all viable excuses after all, but Felicity just needed a night. A night to let loose. A night to forget about how crazy her life was. A girls night. But that wasn’t on the cards any more for that night, so when Oliver turned up at the foundry to switch shifts with her at six o’clock, his whispered ‘enjoy girls night’ had been met with a small scoff as she left the building.

Which lead them to eight o’clock and confused Felicity staring at a very overwhelmed Oliver Queen on her doorstep.

She’d just got into her pyjamas, ordered her pizza, and planned to spend a night alternating between relaxing in the bath and reading her book in bed. Sounded like a solid plan to her. Except then the doorbell was ringing and Oliver was there and why was Oliver there, exactly?

“I’m sorry to intrude on…whatever it is you’re doing,” he mumbled. “But you seemed disappointed earlier, and I know it’s been a terrible week with…well, everything, and I-”

“Oliver,” she cut him off, a little exhaustion creeping into her voice as she leaned on the door frame. “What are you doing here?”

“I’m here for girls night,” he explained, flashing her his most charming smile.

“You’re…what?” she blinked.

His arm shifted to let the duffel bag slip from his shoulder to his arm, and he opened it. “I’ve got movies - which I stole from Thea, and snacks, and ice cream - which might be melting so you should definitely freeze this, and several bottles of wine, mostly wine, in fact.” He looked up at her dumbfounded expression.

For one of very few times in her life, Felicity Smoak was speechless.

Oliver’s face crossed into a look of concern, suddenly aware that he may have intruded on her privacy perhaps a little too much, and he looked guilty. “Is this…okay?” he asked her. “I bought pyjamas, if that helps?”

He tugged on some fabric inside the bag to demonstrate that he really did bring pyjamas, which looked to be sweat pants and an old t-shirt, but Felicity just spoke a single word. “Why?”

“Well, because technically I sleep naked, but that would be inappropriate pyjamas in this situation, so—”

“No, why are you doing this?” she asked again.

His concern dropped into something softer, something boyish and proud. “You looked really disappointed when you left earlier, so I talked to Thea and found out your plans got cancelled,” he explained. “But you also said yesterday that you really needed this night, so I didn’t want you to miss out on it.”

Despite years of having a crush on her boss/partner/friend, Felicity would always pinpoint this moment, that smile, and that admission to the exact second that she completely fell for Oliver.

After an extremely grateful hug in the doorway, she had eventually invited him in. Her pizza arrived a few minutes later, her bath was forgotten about, and the wine was opened. It was interesting to test his knowledge of girls nights, which Thea had seemingly given him a crash-course in. He’d rather dutifully sank into the space between the couch and the coffee table with her, dining on the pizza which they shared in front of Pretty Woman, The Vow and The Notebook.

She didn’t care that he was seeing her without make up, without hair done to perfection, in nothing but her rattiest pair of pyjamas and severely fluffy socks. This was entertaining enough. Oliver’s participation wasn’t just to humour her, it was more than enthusiastic.

She’d had a hard time keeping her face still from laughing when he had his head leaned back and a bright yellow peel-off face mask covering his skin, complaining that she didn’t have any cucumber to complete the day spa experience. When she had given in and laughed, cracking her mask, he’d reacted by smearing some of his mask across her neck.

Halfway through The Vow, they’d propped their feet up on the coffee table and discussed the finer points of Channing Tatum as she painted their toenails. Felicity, after a bottle of red wine so far, had no trouble commenting on the size of Oliver’s feet, nor did she resist from leaning over his legs to get to his other foot. Oliver let her, drunkenly playing with her hair as he told her that Channing Tatum suffered for his art and tried to guess what his workout routine would be.

During The Notebook, the alcohol took over. The space beside Felicity on the couch was thick with tissues, and halfway through Oliver decided to lay out behind her on the couch, and - Dear God - they were spooning in front of The Notebook.

But by the end of the movie, Oliver’s head lifted quickly with what she liked to refer to as his kicked puppy expression. “What? What? They’re the old couple?” he asked, his voice cracked and his eyes shining a little. “So they just…what? It was him all along? It wasn’t a story.”

“It was his memoir, because of her memory,” she said, her own voice raw from her near hysterical sobbing for the last ten minutes of the movie.

“That’s a stupid ending. Totally not fair. Life isn’t fair.” Oliver slumped back down to the arm of the couch, his head knocking against Felicity’s but neither of them were complaining. He remained slumped in his drunken depression for half the credits before she was twisting in the tiny space on the couch, landing her hands crushed between their chests as she looked at him.

“This was a really nice thing you did for me tonight,” she told him, ignoring the fact that she was slurring her words just a little. Just enough to be totally honest.

“You looked sad earlier. I want you to be happy,” he said, and if he had room in the tiny space he might have shrugged, but instead he just shuffled down a little and put his arms around her so she didn’t fall off the couch.

“That’s cheesy,” she snickered into his chest.

“I was taking notes during the movies. Shh, don’t tell anyone,” he whispered, and she laughed despite herself, her post-Notebook teary face getting wiped over his t-shirt.

“You always surprise me,” she remarked out loud, and his response was to hum and embrace her more tightly.

“This was my…grand gesture,” he explained. “My fall-in-love-with-me-please movie moment.”

He must have been really drunk to tell her that, because after just a few seconds they had both descended into uncontrollable giggles at the idea.

“Do all your grand gestures involve nail polish and skin care?” she teased him, slipping her arm around his waist to get more comfortable.

“Only the really special ones,” he grinned back, she could feel the movement against the top of her head. “Did it work? As a gesture?”

“Yeah,” she said more quietly, “It was such a good gesture, I think they’d have Channing Tatum play you in the movie of this night.”

He pulled his head back and gave her a shocked look, and within moments they were laughing and falling back into the space between the couch and the coffee table, Felicity trapped on her back with Oliver leaning over her. “Oh, Channing Tatum’s got nothing on me…”


	2. New Mothers Do Not Glow

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Felicity Smoak + body issues after pregnancy

Felicity had always been comfortable in her own body. Despite grown up as the daughter of a Vegas mom who was determined to keep her body in perfect shape, she’d never obsessed about her weight. She ate healthily, exercised as much as she could stand to, and her indulgences never seemed to impact negatively upon her.

She hated her body now. She hated it with a burning passion.

Her body no longer felt like her own. She felt like every inch - every extra inch - was betraying her, taunting her, and slowly destroying every inch of what little self-confidence she had left.

She loved being a mother. She adored her. Her baby boy was the most precious thing in her world and she loved him with everything she had, but she just wished that her son hadn’t decided to wreck her body when he came into this world.

There were things about pregnancy that none of the thirty-two books she’d read had prepared for her. The books hadn’t prepared her for the idea that Oliver would thrive on fatherhood, that his need to protect what was his ended up with him lifting his crying son out of the crib while Felicity was still trying to untangle her legs from the blankets. There wasn’t any doubt that Tommy Queen was the safety little boy in all of Starling City.

Pregnancy hadn’t been easy. Once they had gotten over the fears of their child - unplanned, happy accident of a child - being a target, there had been problems with blood pressure, and water weight, and early labour, an eventual c-section that Felicity absolutely hadn’t wanted, but it was essential to her and her baby surviving the labour. For weeks, she’d struggled to get up without flashes of pain, and she was lucky enough to have Oliver’s constant support and his unwavering loyalty.

So loyal and supportive, in fact, that he hadn’t even hinted at the idea of her body becoming the one-woman sideshow of a freak show.

It was hard to lose the baby weight while she was recovering from her c-section. She’d had an exercise plan, and it had failed at her first hurdle. Her body curved in ways it never had before, pockets of fat that had built up from water retention that had never gone away. She attributed each one to the mint-chip ice cream cravings her son gave her. She lived in sweat pants, or sundresses and leggings, no longer able to fit her fuller thighs into the tiny skirts and jeans she’d worn before her pregnancy. Sometimes her thighs wobbled when she walked down stairs or tried to run. She hated that. Her body was moving of its own accord and that didn’t feel natural.

Stretchmarks were another curse of child-growing. Her stomach was covered in angry red marks because Tommy had not been a small baby, despite being born early, and her body was incredibly tiny before him. She also had marks across her thighs and hips where the skin had grown, but they had faded quickly into silvery lines. Her stomach was a battlefield site that itched and it wasn’t until four months passed that they finally started to ease off. She used a cream on them to reduce the scarring, but even that didn’t seem to help as much, even with her c-section scar.

Her periods had turned into hell she’d not been prepared for. She thought the grumble of cramping in her lower stomach had been painful before, but there was nothing compared to the six week onslaught of bleeding that she was convinced may actually leave her needing a transfusion. It was even hard to deal with under Oliver’s care, and he never once complained about how many times he needed to help her get out of bed and into the bathroom, and she swore the man deserved a knighthood for not only getting up in the night to pass Tommy to her so she could feed him, but also to change bloodied sheets without a word of complaint.

Her shoe size had gone up while she was pregnant, due to the swelling. She’d hoped that would have been reversed - it hadn’t. When Tommy was five months old and she really wanted to wear her pale blue heels to Sara’s fifth birthday party, she’d broken down in tears next to the closet because none of her coveted shoe collection fit her. Oliver swore to buy her more pairs. It wasn’t the same.

Oliver had loved the way her breasts had swollen during her pregnancy, and with her heightened hormones it had lead to an appreciation of body worship that even they had never reached before. Once Tommy was weaned onto soft foods and away from breastfeeding, part of her had foolishly hoped that one part of her body would go back to how it was. That was foolish indeed. Her breasts were larger still, but nowhere near as pert as they used to be, sensitive in annoying ways after the months of breastfeeding, and she looked at the delicate cups of her old bras with a distasteful longing for the maternity bras she now lived in.

Pregnancy will suit you, Lyla had told her. You’ll glow, her mother had told her. Everything will fall into place when your baby gets here, Laurel had told her.

Liars, all of them.

So she tried to regain her former confidence. She tried desperately. She worked out when she could, and eventually her stomach had shrunk enough for her to no longer wonder if there was another baby trying to hide away in there. She jogged with the stroller when she walked to the park with Tommy. She used Tommy as a weight when she lay on her back and raised the squealing boy above her head (even after the time he threw up directly onto her face). She got her hair cut for the first time in eight months and got new clothes to flatter her new body shape. She even joined a weight-loss group for new mothers - it shocked her even more that she made friends there, and that there wasn’t a single thing she was feeling and experiencing that wasn’t normal.

She still refused to make love to Oliver unless they were underneath the blanket with all the lights off. He didn’t complain, but she knew it was bothering him that a man so visually stimulated hadn’t actually seen her naked in close to seven months.

She’d been enjoying a rare hour of peace on the bed, finally reading the first few chapters of the book she’d actually planned on reading before Tommy arrived, when Oliver slipped into the bedroom and closed the door behind him. He’d been out on what Diggle had insisted was a regular father’s trip to the park, which usually consisted of the two of them sat next to Tommy’s stroller while Sara ran frantically around the playground. He had a look of mischief on his face, biting his lip as he took in the convenience of seeing her already laid out on the bed.

“Tommy’s asleep, I just put him down,” he told her.

“Great, because I’m really enjoying this chapter,” Felicity mumbled, distracted by the book in her hands.

“He’ll probably sleep for another hour, at least,” Oliver continued approaching the side of the bed and stretching out on his side next to her.

“That gives me time to get some bottles ready for him before he wakes up, and…oh,” she broke off when she felt his hand sneaking up her hip. A soft touch, but highly suggestive. “Oliver, it’s the middle of the day…” she hesitated.

“So?” he asked her, that all-too-familiar grin on his face. “We used to have sex in the middle of the day all the time,” he reminded her, as he ducked his lips against her neck and tossed her book across the room. “And in the morning, and in the shower, and in the kitchen, and in the foundry, and that one time in the airplane restroom…”

“But-” the argument died on her lips, but the protest was there all the same. Those were all wonderfully stimulating memories but they were also times when Felicity wasn’t ashamed of her own appearance.

He picked up on her hesitation though, and drew his lips back, propping his head up on his arm as he watched her. She remained sprawled out on her back, her head turned towards him. He could see it all in her eyes, everything he’d noticed and suspected for months. “Why do you worry that I’m not attracted to you any more?” he asked her quietly, his hand dropping to her hip.

She looked down at his hand placement, avoiding his eyes. “Everyone says that becoming a mother is this beautiful life-changing event and that your life is never the same again,” she told him. “They’re right about that, but it’s definitely not beautiful.”

Oliver’s lips parted as if he was going to respond, but she cut him off.

“I don’t feel like me any more,” she whispered. “I don’t recognise myself in the mirror anymore. I’m covered in all these stretch marks and there’s all this extra weight that never used to exist that just won’t shift, and my hips are huge now. Not to mention the dark circles under my eyes, like, constantly, and my boobs are sagging which is really depressing because I’m not even thirty until next month and my boobs are already failing me, and they were really good boobs, Oliver,” she babbled on, her hands coming up to cover her eyes because dear god, “Even my emotional state is ruined.”

“They were good boobs,” Oliver agreed and dammit she could hear the smile in his voice. “But I don’t think you understand how much more beautiful this makes you,” he told her, his thumb circling her hip bone.

“I feel like a bad mother,” she confessed. “I mean…I love Tommy. I really love him so much, he’s the best guy in the world - no offence to you - but…I feel like he ruined me at the same time.”

“Felicity,” he whispered, his hand rising to cup her cheek and press a kiss to her forehead before he was up on his feet, tugging her hand.

“What are you doing?” she asked, her voice dangerously thick with emotion.

“Come here,” he said simply, pulling her to stand in front of her least favourite place in the entire house - the full length mirror on the far side of the room. It taunted her daily, the glass image of her changing body, and she really, really didn’t want to be here. Except Oliver’s arms were sneaking around her waist. “Do you know what this is?” he asked, peppering kisses across her shoulder.

“The start of a really horrible episode of Embarrassing Bodies?” she said with a small sniff in her words.

“No,” he said, not hiding the hint of laughter in his tone. He raised his eyes to hers in the mirror, and she was ashamed to see him still look at her with this unfaltering love she didn’t feel she deserved. Oliver had been so good to her at every hurdle, and what had she given him in return?

“This is the body of the woman who carried my son,” he told her, his hands slipping from her waist to her stomach. “This is where he grew…my little boy lived here for eight months and I can’t figure out why he was so determined to arrive early and leave this. This is where he was safest, right inside his mother.” She drew in a breath, her head resting back against his shoulder. “This is where I placed my hands when I found out you were pregnant, and then that we were having a boy, or whenever I needed to feel close to my family. His hand slid to the side slightly. “This is exactly where my hand was the first time I felt him kick,” he recalled.

Then his hand was slipping the waistband of her sweatpants down just enough that the stretch marks on her stomach were visible. He traced his thumbs over them in a way that made Felicity bite her lip at this intimacy. “This is the mark he left on you for carrying him. One tiny scar for each time he kicked you, each time he let you know he was in there waiting to meet us.” Probably not true. Scientifically, that couldn’t be true, but why, oh why, did this man have to be so perfect?

His hand slid lower, each of his large hands closing around the top of her thighs. “These are the thighs I helped hold in place when you tried to push him into the world,” he smiled. “Pure strength, because I’ve never seen you as strong as when you tried to refuse that c-section,” he laughed slightly in recollection.

Oliver’s hand came up to trace the scar on her stomach from the surgery. “This is where my son came into the world from,” he explained. “This scar is better than any of mine. There is no pain in this scar, no guilt, no suffering. This is a scar that said we bettered our existence by bringing him into our lives. This scar says that we made something so beautiful and perfect and precious that it was wrong to keep him inside because we needed to show him the world.”

By the time his hands trailed up her sides, he was taking her t-shirt - well, his t-shirt - with them, and he whipped it over her head and across the room without listening to her protest, she had tears on her cheeks. She hadn’t been this bare in front of him in months, and feeling his thumbs stroking the underside of her breasts was a comfort she’d missed.. “This is where my son would feed from, and that made him strong, made him grow, and to be honest, these maternity bras are genius with their easy access,” he teased, his fingers only brushing against the extra openings on the front.

“You need to stop being so perfect,” she choked out, turning her face into the side of his neck as his arms came around her fully. “I can’t keep up.”

“Felicity, I love you,” his voice was firm, and she could feel him looking down at her as he spoke even as his arm traced up her back. “Don’t ever be ashamed of what you look like or especially what you feel like when you’re with me. You’re my wife. Mother of my child. You’re ashamed of this body? I’m in love with it. It bought my son life, it gave me my family, my home…” He lifted her chin so she could see him properly when he spoke, and she saw just as much emotion in his eyes as there was spilling from her own. “You might be carrying a little extra since Tommy was born, but that’s okay. I think the world could do with a little more of you in it.”

“Oliver Queen, you’re such a sap,” she said quietly, but she was feeling better about herself for the first time in months. She stood on raised toes to press her lips to his, her arms crushing around his neck as she tried to drown in him. “Never stop being perfect.”

“I’ll try,” he smirked back. “So, let’s forget about this longing for your old body, and start working out how your new one works.”


	3. I Can Hurt You Most When I Don't Touch You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Olicity + Intensive care

The Intensive Care Unit at Starling General Hospital was a place that Oliver Queen had become quite acquainted with over the years. The hospital overall had been something of a pit stop for him at least once a year, but ever since he’d ended up collapsed in the hallway when Thea was declared gone (temporarily), he’d become more and more familiar with these laminate floors and white walls. He was certain the flyers on the pin board were becoming tailored to him - except the one about ensuring gynaecological exams were done regularly - and he was glad to see that he was at least getting some use out of the sizeable donation he’d made to this wing several years ago.

He’d been here once himself. Only once, mind you, three years ago. He’d taken a bullet to the chest which had punctured his lung, and after some complications in surgery they’d kept him in the ICU overnight to ensure he kept breathing. Nothing out the ordinary considering the damage caused, but it sounded a lot more dramatic when Felicity told the story - which she did, every time she argued he wasn’t taking care of himself enough. He was so full of medication that night that he’d slept through most of his stay, and he didn’t remember much of anything until he was moved to a regular room for his final night before going home.

He hated the idea of the place, despite it’s use. He hated that there was a place within a life-saving building that you went to when the usual medics weren’t able to patch you up properly. He hated the reminder of how fragile life was. Of how easily it could be lost.

“Hey, man.”

He looked up from his perch when he heard Diggle’s voice. He blindly took the cup of coffee from him that he offered. “Thanks,” he muttered quietly.

Oliver had been hovering in this hallway for hours now. He hadn’t bothered to track the time they’d arrived here, so it was useless trying to figure out how long exactly; he’d lost count and he’d certainly lost sleep. He wasn’t supposed to be here, either, but Lance had made some calls, and when that hadn’t been enough, Diggle had gotten on to Waller, and it was amazing, really, the lengths you had to go to to bypass standard visiting hours in a hospital these days.

There weren’t any chairs in this hall, which had been inconvenient. There were seats inside the individual rooms, but since they weren’t supposed to be loitering in the hallway, Oliver had been slumped against the wall on the ground the entire time, ignoring the cold feel of the floor beneath him. When he’d stood he’d been trembling, though he wasn’t sure if that was from relief, lack of food and drink through the most part of the day, or the fear of what still awaited him.

The coffee, he found, helped. Perhaps it was just lack of sugar.

“Any news yet?” Diggle asked him.

Oliver shook his head. “Just that someone should be with us soon. That was….” he checked his watch, and sighed heavily. “An hour ago. Did you call-?”

“Donna’s on her way,” he confirmed quietly, and Oliver merely nodded in response.

No sooner had they lapsed back into silence, one of the doctors approached them, and Oliver was on his feet instantly. He listened to the words he spoke, only taking in the important ones. Lucky. Internal bleeding. No brain injury. Several broken bones. Further surgery required. After waking.

Wait, what?

“She’s not awake?” Oliver asked, interrupting what the doctor was saying about the possibility of rehabilitation treatments if the damage was as extensive as they feared. “Is that the anaesthetic, or…?”

“No, it’s simply her body catching up with what happened,” the doctor explained. “It’s not a coma, she’s just…taking time out,” he continued in layman’s terms. Usually Oliver could understand the complex medical jargon, but not when all he was thinking about was the person they were discussing. She clouded his mind, impaired his judgement, and though his words should reassure him, they didn’t. “Now, we are confident that this first surgery went well, but in the event she does need a further surgery, we’d like to keep her in the ICU as a precaution.”

Diggle was asking questions that Oliver couldn’t voice, but his feet felt heavy when they moved towards the door. He almost didn’t stop when they reached it, but the increased pounding in his heart made him fall short, leaning against the door frame support because his legs no longer seemed capable.

“In light of the circumstances and your very generous donations to this wing, you’re welcome to stay as long as you wish to, Mr. Queen,” the doctor told him as he turned to leave.

As if he’d leave her.

The room seemed small in appearance, considering how much machinery it was filled with. There were so many monitors and tubes that it should have frightened him, but it wasn’t the daunting screens that instilled fear within him, it was the figure within the bed that made his heart ache.

“Felicity,” he whispered breathlessly.

She was stone still, her arms draped over the blankets that covered the bandages from the surgery she’d recently returned from. Her skin was deathly pale, despite the blood transfusion he’d been informed mid-way through her surgery that she’d received. Her blonde hair was spread across the thin pillow, still slightly curled from how she’d prepared it after her last shower, but they’d covered her hair during surgery and now the springing curls were duller, with less life. The remaining touches of her pink lipstick were barely visible beneath the oxygen mask covering her nose and mouth.

“It’s just precaution,” Diggle reminded him quietly.

There was that word again. Precaution. It didn’t give him the impression that she was as okay as they kept trying to make him believe. Precaution was in place because there was a risk, and risk was what alarmed him. From what experience told him, people were only told not to be alarmed when there was a valid reason to be terrified. Even though he’d been assured that she was going to survive, he realised that there was still an underlying risk until she was awake - and he wasn’t entirely sure he wanted to know what the risks were - a risk that her stitches would tear? That the second surgery would be bigger? That the first surgery would fail? More complications? Post-op infections?

A risk that she could still die?

A strong burning behind his eyes caused him to blink harshly, trying to swallow the thick lump in his throat. He had to break away for a moment, to bow his head so that he couldn’t see Felicity looking like that, and one hand rose to hide his face. He tried to control his breathing as it suddenly seemed to escape and overwhelm him, determined not to lose control as he already had done twice since they’ been here, but it was hard. The day - two days? how long had it been? - had been so long and painful that this was just the twist of the knife in his gut on top of it.

A firm hand came down on his shoulder, an odd gentleness in its weight, and Oliver looked up to Diggle. “Look what I did to her,” he choked out.

“You didn’t do this, Oliver,” Diggle told him.

“It was my fault she was still in the building when it came down,” he insisted, flinging his arm to the side to gesture to her. “Look at her, Dig, she looks dea–.”

He cut off harshly, swallowing down the last part of the word he was afraid to speak lest it came true.

“This was not your fault,” Diggle said firmly. “You need to get that into your head quickly, because this is not what she needs from you right now.” He use the hand on Oliver’s shoulder to physically turn him back to Felicity. “You were there when she needed help. No one knew what was going to happen until it did. But you got her out. You kept her alive until medics arrived, and you did everything you could.”

Oliver sighed in a fractured way, closing his eyes.

“You were there, Oliver,” Diggle continued. “She’s going to live because you were there.”

Oliver inhaled sharply, a sound that he tried to disguise. He didn’t try to reply, he just wiped a hand over his face and stepped shakily to her side. He wanted to stay away to avoid seeing the damage that had been caused to her, but he knew the right place to be was at her side. Diggle waited in the doorway, in case Oliver had a lapse of judgement and made a bid for solitude.

When Oliver reached her bedside, he half expected her to open her eyes, her beautiful eyes, and be glad to see him or just a moment before she started insisting that this wasn’t his fault. He pulled one of the visitor chairs to her bedside and took her limp hand in his, careful not to disturb any of the tubes attached to her arm. The hand felt warm in his own, which comforted him more than he could describe. Warm like morning coffee. Warm like laughter echoed off the shower walls. Warm like skin on skin. Warm like life. But there was one thing missing. He moved a hand to his pocket, and startled with a jumping breath when he found it to be empty.

“Here.”

Diggle was behind him down, extending a hand to him with a circle of gold inside his palm. Oliver didn’t remember letting it leave his hand, but luckily Diggle had picked it up when it slipped his grasp. His own ring felt heavy on his hand knowing that hers had been removed for her surgery and given to him by the nurses.

He slid it back onto her hand, where it belonged, where he’d first placed it on their wedding day, and he squeezed the digits lightly. It wasn’t too tight an action, but it was enough to let her know that he was there if she could feel him. He sighed after, bringing their clasped hands to his forehead, resting against them. “Married four months and I nearly lose her…”

“She’s alive,” Diggle told him. “That’s all that matters.”

Diggle left after a few moments, wanting to get home to Lyla and to update everyone on Felicity’s condition. He’d be back the following day after picking Donna up from the airport. In the meantime, Oliver was left completely alone with her still form.

He tried to convince himself that it wasn’t all that different from the way she’d fall asleep reading with her head in his lap while he watched Sports Center, and he’d watch her for an hour before carrying her to bed. She slept so heavily it was easy to move her. It wasn’t the same, though, because of the beeping monitors, because of the wires, because her lips were covered by a mask.

He felt himself letting out a breath he wasn’t sure he’d even been holding, but as he released it he felt a constriction in his chest disappearing. Now that he was beside her and could see the gentle rise and fall of her chest he could see that the movements were slightly out of sync and untimed, proving that her breathing wasn’t synthetic and was entirely of her own accord.

Allowing his weakness to drown him, he went to lay his head down beside her, the top of his head cushioned at the side of her stomach - luckily, he felt no unnatural padding of bandages there. Having her body for a pillow bought back memories of only two nights ago when they’d curled around each other and fought off the plagues that his nightmares still bought.

“Love you,” he whispered to their still joined hands. “Please, wake up soon. I’m right here. Just…Let me know you’re okay.”

She didn’t. Not yet. But he was there and she was alive.

It wasn’t the way that he imagined they’d be lying together now all this was over, but they were together and alive, and for now, that was victory enough.


	4. Loving Him Was Red

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Inspired by this tumblr post: http://yellowflicker09011996.tumblr.com/post/126433104127/aussieforgood-honorthedeadbyfighting-amell

His life becomes red in an instant. One moment it is pink; the joyous colour of lips curled in the smile that is happy to see him. It is shining like the eyes that tempt him to bed on late nights; the soothing skin that brushes against his. It’s shocking pink like the jumpstart his heart gets when she wears her favourite heels. It’s baby pink like the colour she paints her toenails. She exists in shades of pink that drown out the grey, oddly complementing the green he’s shrouded himself in, and she exists so entirely, so completely, until she doesn’t.

She turns to red in his arms, and from them on his whole life will remain red. He knows the grey will return, but for now, everything is so furiously red.

It’s the red of the bloodbath he’s amassed in his life, and he stands in the center, doused in the blood of the women who have loved him, eyes void of life staring back at him from every angle. The red of his life is filled with bodies that are dead by his association. Shado. Sara. His mother. Sara again. Almost Thea. Deaths he has moved on from. Deaths he had survived with the help of pink lips and colorful dresses.

He will not survive hers.

One moment she is rushing to his arms, relieved at his presence with his name on her lips and the next she is crumpled. He doesn’t even see the sniper, doesn’t realise there was a bullet until the blood sprays from the far side of her skull and takes with it fragments of the brain that has created miracles, saved thousands, set in motion life-changing technological advancements as simply as if they were pulp. Her blonde hair is streaked with blood in ways that would make her shriek at her own reflection because he knows how seriously she takes her hair colour and he’s still not entirely sure what her natural colour is. In moments, her elated features become lifeless, and her once familiar face is stunned. There is no fear, no terror, no pain. She doesn’t feel it. She doesn’t know what’s happened. She is merely a blood-soaked doll of the woman he loved.

Loved. Past tense.

Loving him comes with consequences too great to risk. He’s warned her of that before but she fought him through it, told him they could be happy, and they were. He’s not happy now. Loving him is followed by death. Swift and untimely, undeserved and undignified.

This is the woman he loves, gathered in his arms, already gone from life as he roars at her still body to return to him. His tears become screams until his voice is hoarse and she still doesn’t move. He knows all too well the damage a sniper can do, and she hasn’t felt pain, hasn’t suffered, but he is suffering. He is in pain.

This is the woman who once looked at him as a savior, who convinced him he could be a hero. Lovers. She is the moment of purity in the illicit life he leads. She is the beauty that returned the innocence he’d lost when the Queen’s Gambit sank.

He buries her. The red remains.

He puts the hood back on. The red takes over.

Green is drowned out by crimson rage, and he finds the man who took his light from him. He feels her light fade from sight along with her scene and her voice when he drags the terrified man into an alley away from sight and unleashes his fury upon him.

The bow is never touched. Arrows are never unleashed.

He levels more damage to this man than he has never managed with his bare hands.

He keeps going until there is blood sprayed on the walls, dank bricks coated in the scarlet that is all he sees. It thrills him, to see this man brought to justice. He wants him to feel the pain. He wants him to fear his last moments and know that there is no goodbye for men who shoot down innocent women who are running to their partners for safety. It is men like this who make him sick, but there is no bile on his tongue as he tears at the flesh surrounding the fractured bone that sticks out through his skin.

He wants to cause pain.

He wants to stop feeling everything.

There is a darker version of himself that existed, one that she stopped him becoming, and now he has taken over. This man is not judicial like the Arrow. This man is not calculating like Al Sah-Him. This man is pain. This is sheer agony contained in a weaponised body, a body carved for delivering pain to the point that he never believes he deserved her gentleness in the first place.

New starts aren’t deserving for men who have tortured fellow men, unleashed weapons of biblical scales and murdered without agenda. He knew better how to remove a woman’s vital organs that her lipstick, but still, she had loved him, and look what it had cost her.

He slams his targets skull into the dirty ground so many times that eventually his fingertips brush bare bone, and slip inside. It is horrifying, but he doesn’t stop. The back of his skull has caved in entirely, and he know that the man is dead. It is not enough. It will never be enough.

This corpse is the man who took Felicity Smoak from life. Does he even understand what that meant? Does he understand what greatness he has taken from this world?

Does he understand what he has unleashed in the Arrow by taking her?

Arms are grabbing him, pulling him away from the body, and he strains against them. He strains and fights like he should have fought for her and it is only a familiar voice in his ear that has him stopping. He doesn’t want to stop. He wants to feel that man crumble into oblivion like the dirt he laid on Felicity’s grave. Diggle’s voice is familiar but it is not enough to bring him back from the darkness, and he isn’t sure how many arms he fights off until he realizes Diggle is not alone.

It is still not enough.

He pulls free from the arms that try to hide him, and when one tries to unmask him, he breaks loose entirely. He runs until he cannot run anymore, to where not even his few remaining friends, and he becomes the man he has always been. The Arrow, as he first intended him to be. Back when people feared him and didn’t see him as a savior. He isn’t a savior. How can he save anyone when the woman who saved him is gone?

They fear him again.

There is only red now. The green is a mere occupational hazard.

The Arrow is ruthless, without pity or emotion. He finds his targets and they try to escape as his arrows pin down their screaming forms, and he lays punctures in them until they have all but drained their life force away. They beg for their lives. He begins to enjoy that, or at least he would if he could remember what it was like to feel a happiness that wasn’t linked to her smile. They offer penance, plead for mercy, for restraint, for his sanity, but they receive nothing but an undignified death.

They feared him before Felicity saved him.

They will fear him more now she is gone.


	5. Aftermath

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anonymous said:Hi! Can you maybe do a miscarriage story? I know they’re super hard to write.

The bed is wet when Oliver wakes up. Not the whole bed, just the part of the sheet where his hand is resting as it’s draped over her hip. He isn’t sure what’s woken him at first, but it doesn’t take long for him to work it out, even though it takes a long moment for his sleep-addled brain to put the pieces together. Felicity’s shaking, really trembling beyond control, almost vibrating in a way that convinces him there’s a terribly made carbon copy of her lying beside him until he realises that this isn’t a normal nightmare. It’s not even a nightmare. She isn’t asleep, but she’s definitely not awake enough to know what’s going on. Her eyes are barely open, unfocused, desperate, and the arm that was once resting over his, enclosing them together in their rest, is now pressing down so firmly on her stomach she looks like she might burst through it, which is why his hand had fallen down onto the sheet…the wet sheet…

He feels like he’s watching himself move from outside his own body as he tears away the bed sheets that are thrown haphazardly over them. They’re still only in their underwear after a night spent together in her bed and against the pale yellow sheet they’re lying on he can instantly see the reason for her agony. Blood. The sheet is tainted with so much blood it looks like she’s had her throat slit but the stain is too far down for it to be her throat. Shaking hands check over every inch of her skin for injury until his hands join hers over her stomach and he…knows. He just knows at that moment. The pieces of the puzzle slide into place and his stomach drops so quickly it drags his heart down along with it.

His voice trembles as he whispers her name, pressing his face into her neck for a moment which a pained whine that he’s never heard from his own lips before, not even when he’d seen his mother killed in front of him, because this is worse than anything he’s ever felt before. That sounds breaks his own heart more than the fact that Felicity is barely making any sound except for gasping breaths against the pain, and he realises with an agonising shattering of his heart that she doesn’t know what’s happening.

“Liss, we gotta go,” he tells her, his voice distant despite the pet name as he struggles to block out the facts just enough to do what needs to be done. “Come on, we’re going now.”

He gets out of the bed to find her clothes, a robe, anything to cover her dignity with, and ends up carefully sliding one of his own sweaters over her. It dangles past her hips but she doesn’t adjust it or play with the hem like she sometimes did. She barely notices it against her bare skin until he has to physically remove her hands from her stomach to put them through the sleeves and this makes her cry out and her eyes screw shut. It’s only when he goes to find clothes for himself when he realises that his boxers are dripping with the blood, but the tendrils of it dripping down onto his thighs are nothing compared to the puddle she’s now sitting in.

Four hours later, their doctor confirms what Oliver already knows. She’s miscarried their child in the night. Felicity was nineteen weeks pregnant, still barely showing because she’d kept up her exercise and strict diet, and she was told by the nurse on staff that it would take a while to come into her stomach properly because it was her first pregnancy. Oliver had noticed for the first time earlier that week, as she lay back for the scan and he stared through misty eyes at the computer image of a baby-type thing that actually did have the shape of his nose and Felicity’s eyes are close to tears when they’re told it’s a boy.

But he’s taken from them already, and he isn’t sure if Felicity fully processed the words of the doctor before the sedation sends her to sleep. She took a shuddering breath as they told her, but Oliver didn’t even attempt to hide the tears that rolled down his face at the knowledge. Their son had died. Their baby. And he’d never even gotten a chance to try and protect him despite all the nights Felicity had fallen asleep with him speaking promises of safety to her stomach.

He goes back home where they’d been sleeping before what they would later refer to as ‘the incident’, and takes everything covered in blood to the trash; the sheets, the underwear they’d both been wearing, even the damn mattress is tossed out to be destroyed. They move into the guest room where there are no horrific memories. But there’s a spot on the cream carpet that fell from one of them that he can’t scrub away and it’s that one spot that dissolves him to tears on the bedroom floor.

Because he knows that it will never be the same again.

-

Felicity never remembers that night. She doesn’t remember Oliver dressing her, checking her for injury, carrying her to the hospital and shouting orders around as if she’d been shot in the chest. She doesn’t remember the blood, or how it felt, or even being in pain. She doesn’t remember any of it before waking up under the sedation and Oliver at her side. She hates the sedation, hates the numbness and the drugs, and wants to scream that she shouldn’t be sedated because she’s pregnant…and that’s the moment that it hits her, the same moment where she meets Oliver’s eyes and he reaches for her hand. The touch of his skin on hers merges too much with a cramp in her stomach that’s familiar, but not one she’s felt for several months and she knows then that her baby is gone.

She goes straight to the guest room when she’s released from the hospital. She can’t stand to go back to their usual bedroom when she knows there must be blood there and as much as he tries to give her some space to grieve, he still sneaks to her in the dead of night after everything has been taken care of and crawls into her bed with her. Neither of them want to sleep in the room where their child left them, and it only takes a matter of days for all their possessions to join them in the guest room. The other room becomes an unused storage room.

But they tell no one. No one knew that they were expecting. No one knew that it was supposed to be the start of their new life together, that they were going to use the scan photo that Felicity hid away but never destroyed to tell their friends and family over dinner that they were leaving Team Arrow behind. They had money enough to leave, a house on the outskirts of Coast City with their names on, and they were going to leave this world behind and start new. But no one knew that besides themselves. So no one knew when it was taken away.

Felicity took her anti-biotics, went to each of the carefully scheduled and hospital checks afterwards and they doubled their efforts in birth control after. After several months of withdrawing emotionally from him, she allowed Oliver back into her heart and it was six months after their loss that they finally grieved for their lost child together – Christmas Eve, when they should have been in their new home, with their new baby, but that house was still empty and they were still spending their nights in the foundry, bringing safety to Starling City.

Nothing changed.

Only everything had changed.

-

Anniversaries were hard. Not the anniversary of the loss, but the day he would be born. October 12th. They grieved heavily that day, but never together. They allowed each other the space they needed because they needed the distractions and they never knew what to say.

The first anniversary Felicity has a business trip in Central City, and Oliver drinks himself into oblivion and very nearly confesses to Diggle why it is he’s trying to book a train ticket at one in the morning because he simply has to be with Felicity the next morning and he can’t possibly explain to Diggle why. The second anniversary Oliver’s unconscious the entire time, he doesn’t wake up until two days after in hospital because of an injury sustained in the field. He doesn’t expect Felicity to be at his side when he wakes up, but her eyes are tinted read and he’s not sure if it’s because of the date that he missed or the possibility of losing him too, but he realises for the first time that he’s not the only one that thinks about the place that they should be.

He notices it more after, when he knows that it’s still in her mind. He picks up on small details that he wishes he’d seen over the last two years. He notices that sometimes her stomach gives a small jump under his hand when he rests his hand there to sleep and that almost immediately afterwards she’ll turn to face him so the hand falls to the small of her back instead. He notices that when she suffers from her cramps that she doesn’t hide it as much as she used to, that some nights they hurt her so much that she allows him to rub her hips or her back to help her to sleep. He notices that she wakes up every two hours, even if it’s just to adjust her position or to look around her, because part of her body is telling her that she should be waking up for other reasons. He notices that she sometimes spots a woman with a child in the street and stiffens her arms around herself as if they feel empty.

He knows that she hates herself for losing her child more than anything else that she feels insecure about her body. She considers her body as a traitor to her own wills that it refused to allow the life she was growing to live.

But the third anniversary they spent together. They’ve had a year to run, a year to hide, and this year they’ll spend it together and they’ll grieve for the loss that only they feel.

They find each other on the balcony of their apartment, and she’s not at all surprised to see that he’s beaten her too it. The city is almost silent because of the date at this time in the morning, the sky a dank grey that matches the mood.

“Three years old,” Oliver says as she stands beside him, his eyes still trained on the city grey with mourning and oncoming rain.

She grips the railing that his hands are hanging over and shakes her head. “But not really.”

The sigh that follows is one that she’s used to, a soft frustration. “Felicity…”

“He’s not here, Oliver”

The words burn on her own tongue, sending the warmth up to dampen her eyes as he shakes his head. “Felicity, come on,” he tells her tiredly. “You don’t have to do this with me. Not today.”

“I don’t have anyone else to do it with,” she said with such an emotionless tone that his head whips up.

“I lost him too, okay? You’re not the only one who lost him!”

She’s taken aback because he’s snapped at her, and this is the one topic that he’s always shown patience for. His reaction doesn’t get any physical response from her, but she’s learned now to shut things away when they hurt and this one shouldn’t be any different. All she knows is that when she tries to close the lid on this one it fights back a bit more than the other painful memories. But she stays silent when he snaps because he is right. She miscarried their child but she wasn’t the only one who suffered the loss. Oliver lost his son too. Oliver had to help her when she was in pain, had to stay with her and wait while she was too delirious to know what was happening. Oliver had to go back to his room and clean up the blood and Oliver lost his son. Their son.

“I’m sorry,” he mumbles moments after, sighing and lowering his head to rest on the hands that are still dangling from the railing. “Today is…”

“Today is hard,” she finished for him quietly. “I know.”

He sighs again, clearly fighting with himself. “We should be throwing a birthday party right now.”

She looks out at the dank, deserted city and shakes her head. “It seems like an inappropriate day for a birthday party.”

“But it’s still his birthday,” he argued weakly, already knowing he’d lost this argument.

She chokes on the words as they leave her lips. “Birthdays are for people who are born, Oliver.” Of course, he said nothing to that. What could he say? “I’m so sorry,” she whispered, but the words echoed into the empty air anyway.

“No, you’re right,” he mumbles. “It was stupid to say-“

“No, I mean I’m sorry for…losing him.”

Finally he turns to her, and she can see his eyes turned grey blue from the pain that this day brings them. “Felicity, it wasn’t your fault,” he tells her softly.

“But it was,” she insists simply. “My body rejected him, Oliver. Mine.”

“It was an accident-“

“But it wasn’t,” she cut him off. He’d told her that in the hospital right after, but she hadn’t believed him then. “Some part of my body saw him as something to be destroyed.”

“Felic–”

“I killed our son.”

His hands flexed quickly and forced himself up from the railing, hands now gripping her shoulders tightly. She could see the tears in his eyes this close, and how desperately he was trying to keep them from spilling out. “Don’t ever say that again,” he growled. “Ever.”

She shook her head, her own emotions rising despite her best efforts to keep them within. “If you’d gotten anyone else pregnant, your son would still be alive.”

“My son wouldn’t mine if he wasn’t yours as well,” he tells her, letting out a single choked sound. “God, Felicity, families are big things to consider. You know how much it took for us to plan a life that involved him in it, and I wouldn’t do that for just anyone. I did it for you and for him. My family,” he stumbled over the word, his face crumpling on the word he’d avoided since the day they lost their child. “You’re still my family, Felicity…”

“But I-“

“We lost our baby,” he spoke over her, before she could blame herself again. “And it was horrible, and it hurt more than any physical wound we’ve had, but it happens all over the world. It happened to us, but that doesn’t mean we’re any less deserving of a family than anyone else.“

“Everyone we’ve done…” she sighed. “I know that the people we hurt are criminals, but…maybe we don’t deserve something so innocent.”

Oliver shakes his head, one hand moving from her shoulder to her cheek. “That’s not how the world works.”

But she wants that to be the reason. She wants to believe that her child was taken from her because she was a bad person in some way and that sometimes the work they did ended up with people dying. She wants to believe that bad things only happen to bad people because there’s no justice in a world that takes unborn children from people who are deserving of family and there’s certainly no reason to kill a child so innocent it hasn’t tasted its own oxygen yet. She wants to believe that there’s a world for them to raise the baby they didn’t mean to conceive because they’d not been together long enough but stood by anyway, but she can’t believe that because for whatever plans they made, they don’t have the child they prepared for.

So she leans forward, resigning herself to the fact that he’s gone and buries her face into the neck of the man still with her. Her hands ball up into fists against his shirt and she clings to him like he’s the only safe harbour in a storm. “I keep waiting for it to stop hurting, and it doesn’t,” she murmurs into his skin, the words muffled and barely understandable through the crack in her tone.

One of his arms wraps around her back, crushing her to him as the other hand moves from her cheek to bury in her hair, the movement keeps her against his shoulder and even if she had tried to move away from him she couldn’t have. “I know,” he tries to whisper, but he’s so close to tears himself he’s not at all sure how comforting the words are. “Me too.”

“It’s like I’m waiting for someone to bring my baby to hold and no one’s bringing him to me.”

The words cut through him more than the feel of her tears on his shoulder and it breaks him too. His tears fall into her hair as hers spread into the fabric of his jacket collar and they’re silent for a moment, sharing the trembling breaths that keep them both from turning the tears into sobs.

“Felicity…” he chokes out after a moment, letting the unspoken sentence die on his tongue because really, no words can take away their pain. Because three years on feels just as painful as three hours after.

“We could have done it, right?” she tells him.

He nods into her hair. “I know, we would have be good parents.”

“We could have been happy.”

He pulls away some to look at her, briefly brushing his lips against her forehead. “We can still be happy,” he tells her. “It went badly once, that doesn’t mean it’ll happen again.”

She says nothing to that offer, because she knows what it is that he’s telling her. He’s telling her, quite simply, that the house in Coast City is still there in their name, that their financial backup is still in place, that they could disappear the very next day with only her job resignation and saying goodbye to their friends to stop them. It’s what they did best - they hit the road and rediscovered each other. He’s telling her that they could leave this life behind for good this time and they could start fresh in a world where celebrating a third birthday party wouldn’t involve them sharing their tears over the candles that won’t get blown out. Together.

“Just say the word,” he whispers to her, ignoring the soft drizzles of rain that start to fall upon them. “Say the word, and we’ll do it.”

And she looks up at the man before her, her best friend, her partner, her lover, her everything, and the world slides into the place. Because he was there when she shut away the world, because he didn’t lose his head when he woke up that night and found the blood. This is the man that loves her. This is a man who runs from grief and pain, yet never left her side for a moment. He carried her to the hospital and stayed with her. He destroyed the evidence of their loss before she had to go back to it. He gave her the space she needed to build up her strength again but at night knew the darkness would swallow them up and he would wrap his arms around her whether she turned to him or not.

And because he was there. He was there in the increasingly pouring rain, still making her believe that there was a way to move on from this. He was telling her that she could still have a life beyond loss and that she could have that with him. He wasn’t turning his back on her, or forcing her to deal with loss alone. He was embracing her, helping her, and she found the idea of not being alone for the remainder of her life wasn’t as terrifying as she thought it might be. Not when it meant sharing it with someone who knew how she liked her coffee, knew that she always slept facing the door, and knew that some losses were more personal than others.

“O…okay.”

The word was whispered before her mind even processed what she was saying.

“Okay?” he repeated.

She nodded. “Okay.”

He nodded along with her, his eyes not as damp as before though her cheeks felt different. “Okay,” he whispered again, his voice softer and then his lips were on hers as they should have been hours ago, gentle and soothing, so softly she barely felt them part. “Okay,” he repeated. “We’ll try. We’ll try, and if it doesn’t work, at least we’ll have tried. And we’ll be careful this time. No missions, no time-consuming jobs with late hours, no bad connections, no risking our lives, something safe, no chance of you getting hurt. We’ll take all the precautions we need to and-“

He stops talking, or rather rambling, something more suited to her, as her lips pressed to his again, silencing the words he’d clearly been holding to for some time. She mumbles an ‘okay’ against his lips several more times before the rain drives them inside.

They’ll be okay.


	6. Sunburn

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Olicity + sunburn

When Felicity stepped outside that afternoon, she winced.

She’d gone outside to enjoy a glass of wine in the late setting sun, but she didn’t realise Oliver was still out there. When he’d gone to lay out in the sun, she thought he’d have gotten up a few hours after and gone for his usual afternoon run. It was odd to think that they’d developed a routine out here. Not that she didn’t think they’d have a routine. Just that a routine was weirdly domesticated of them - in a good way, of course. Who wouldn’t want a domesticated Oliver Queen because wow, the guy could make folding laundry look like explicit material.

But anyway.

Oliver’s routine had been thrown off-kilter in a huge way. There hadn’t been an afternoon run, because he’d fallen asleep lying on his front outside the cabin. As the sun had moved through the afternoon, it had left him in a large patch of shade created by the silhouette of the house, but she could see from the porch that his back was an angry shade of red. It looked tender and painful, and he definitely wouldn’t be lying comfortably on his back for at least a week. So no sex with her on top. Mind you, they weren’t exactly lacking in sexual ideas. Even though they weren’t exactly alone at any time, they’d found plenty of ways and reasons to—

Not the point, Felicity, she scolded herself.

She made her way back inside, forgetting her glass of wine on a window ledge, and sought out the last of the tube of aloe they’d been keeping for the countless times Oliver fell asleep where he shouldn’t - they really needed to lecture him about skin cancer, or his new sleep schedule, or the amount of money they were investing in aloe. She took the tube back out to where he was, legs crossed beneath her as she sat down next to him.

It no longer shocked her how easily she could sneak up on him; it touched her. There was no bigger sign that Oliver trusted her than that. He’d told her once how he lashed out at his mother on his first night home from the island, and she’d witnessed how sharply he awoke many times from his nightmares. Even without nightmares, there was the bed she’d bought him in the foundry, and she’d noticed how he woke with a snap every time. It was like he was expecting an attack, expecting to be hurt, and never fully resting because of it.

When she squeezed the aloe into her hand and spread it lightly over his lower back, she knew he wasn’t just resting - he was relaxed. It was rare to see him like that, to be able to touch him and not even have him react to it. Sure, she loved how he reacted to her touches. The man was like a damn kitten when it came to nuzzling into her hand, and he tilted his head like a puppy when she found that spot behind his ear that melted him. But when he’s still he’s accepting. He’s vulnerable. And that he allows himself to be vulnerable with her with such ease means more than anything else he can give her.

She wasn’t sure what she imagined when they finally started this thing. This together thing. They weren’t labeling it, she liked that. They threw around the boyfriend/girlfriend thing around from time to time, but there was no label on whatever they had, and no expectations with it. It meant that when the time came for them to go back to Starling City that they could avoid the awkward questions; they would care for each other with whatever intensity they wanted, and there wasn’t anything interfering with that - no impositions, no questions, no problems.

But there were things like this that she hadn’t prepared for, she realised. It had taken her hands skating cooling aloe gel into the flawed skin of his back to realise that as much as she’d longed for him for so long - even when telling herself that she wasn’t - she never gave any thought to the fact that a form of relationship with Oliver would involve this intimacy. She imagined /that/ kind of intimacy, of course, but lazy touches and soft kisses, but instead there was a new level of comfort that came from soft hands against scars, stubble against her neck and growly early-morning tired voices.

She hadn’t prepared for him actually opening up to her.

She wasn’t a stranger to his romantic history - even the more un-romantic parts of it - but she knew he had a longer list of exes than she had. She knew a great deal of them on a personal level now. She also knew that she wasn’t anything like any of them. She wasn’t confident like Laurel, or strong like Sara, she wasn’t slutty (or temporary) like Isobel, she wasn’t dangerous like Helena, she wasn’t mysterious like Shado (she went with mysterious because she barely knew anything about her). She was Felicity. Just Felicity.

Just Felicity, who woke up with indents on her nose every other morning because she forgot to take her glasses off before falling asleep. Felicity, who mainlined coffee and processed foods to keep her alive and fed because she basically worked two jobs, and who really has time for cooking anyway? Felicity, who spent her days off wearing her pyjamas until she had to leave the house. Felicity, who didn’t bother with make-up before going to the store. Felicity, who connected with computers better than people. She was, by most normal people’s standards, normal.

Except she wasn’t normal at all. He could she be normal when Oliver looked at her the way he did?

Her fingers traced up his spine with the aloe gel, her touch more deliberate now and no longer worried about waking him. He still didn’t flinch, so she enjoyed this moment of his calm. Felicity had always dated her fellow nerds. Cooper was the tip of the iceberg, that was followed by her fleeting interest in Barry and her dabble with Ray. Felicity dated boys who knew science, who could ramble off tech specs as quickly as she could. She dated boys who talked fast and were passionate about technical fields. She dated boys who had saved files on video games and had no trouble beating the boss levels.

Oliver didn’t fit into those categories at first. Now, he surpassed them all.

Oliver was smart in ways he didn’t consider of himself. He knew things, and not just from what he discovered in the five years he was gone. He didn’t necessarily end up finishing any of the colleges he started, and he didn’t really have a business head on him, but he knew how to survive. He knew how to construct weapons, how to read people, and that was the kind of intelligence that she admired in him. At the end of the day, Oliver knew how to keep her safe, and more importantly, he knew /her/. He knew how she liked her coffee, and what temperature she took her showers at, and she definitely woke up without her glasses on every morning now, not just when she remembered to take them off.

Oliver didn’t talk fast, he didn’t match her when she did. But he would watch how quickly her lips moved and she knew that he was smiling because he found her babbling adorable. He told her that a lot now. He wouldn’t interrupt her, or try to keep up with her, he would just listen. That calm exterior was always rattled by that smile that overtook him no matter what the circumstance was. He only ever interrupted her by kissing her. She didn’t mind that at all.

Oliver was passionate about what he did. What they did. The work they did was far beyond a hero quest now, it had become a calling for everyone involved, and it was Oliver’s passion for that which kept it alive. He wanted Starling City to be a better place, because he had seen hell and he didn’t want that for the lives of people he cared about. Sometimes his ways of fixing it weren’t always right, but it was the only way he knew how. That’s where she came in. When chaos was around them, she knew how to calm him, how to correct things, because when she tried to change the world and make it a better place, Cooper went to prison and she spent years thinking that her crusade had ended up killing him.

They were different. She liked that.

She liked that his eyes sought hers out the moment they opened. It was rare for her to wake up before him, but it was touching to see that when he woke now, it was peaceful. It was lazy. He felt content, and safe. And she knew that it was a feat in itself for Oliver Queen to wake up feeling safe.

Curious about his current position, she poked her finger into his shoulder slightly. She did need to think about getting him to move inside, and there wasn’t going to be any carrying involved on her part. But he didn’t move. That was beyond trusting. She wasn’t just near him, she was touching him, poking him, and he still hadn’t even shifted his breathing. Yeah, she was so in love with this idiot, it was unbelievable. She loved every part of this thing they had, from their matching stubborn attitudes to the way they calmed each other.

They just had to work on this little habit of her favourite weirdo falling asleep in the sun.

Humming, she leaned down and pressed a kiss on the back of his shoulder, right where the sunburn faded into unmarred skin. “Idiot,” she couldn’t help muttering.


	7. Wake Me Up Inside

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Oliver + motorcycle accident

Cold. The first thing he was consciously aware of was the cold. He wanted to curl into the blankets around him and bring them up to cover his face against the bitterness. He wasn’t even above shoving his head into the warm crevice underneath the pillow for a fraction of extra warmth. That sounded good. He needed to get to the place where only the touch of another person would make things warmer. He knew it well, that warm place where skin brushed skin and he could bury his face into the neck of the love of his life and feel her warm breath mingling with his. Nothing was warmer than Sunday mornings, when he didn’t get out of bed at the crack of dawn to work out and she didn’t get up to start working on her computer. No technology, no cell phones, no exercise…just her in his arms. That was the best warmth, the type that came from her. Felicity. She’d been his fire when his heart felt like ice and he needed that now to thaw him out.

But the cold didn’t ease, and the warmth never came.

His mind felt aware for the first time in too long, even though it felt like he’d been awake for some time. There wasn’t any feeling of waking nor sleeping that he could recognise in the blur of confusion that he both hated and yet longed to slip back into. There had been a darkness and things had been easier there. Nothing had hurt there. But here, wherever he was, there was an icy paid that was spreading through limbs too heavy to move and a pulsing pain in his head. It was like a limbo, where time passed both slowly and quickly, but it still passed nonetheless and he was coming back to himself now. The cold only increased despite the energy to shudder not quite being there yet.

Anaesthesia, he realised. There was only one cold he’d ever felt like this, the uncontrollable chill that held your body after waking from surgery. Anaesthesia and damn good drugs that you’d only find in a hospital clouded his mind, and through the haziness he tried to fight for something more concrete. All he could remember though was the crunch of metal and the cold ground beneath him. His mind was too numb to put it together and he tried to focus instead on a goodbye kiss before he’d gotten onto his motorcycle and left Felicity’s office, a kiss that could have been a day ago or a week ago. There was just a red behind his eyes and a darkness that engulfed him.

And then there was the pain.

It wasn’t like any pain he’d felt before, but the kind of pain that made him want to end everything. This was not a bullet wound, not a wound of any kind that he’d experienced before. He’d been tortured within an inch of his life and he’d still never felt as trapped in his pain as this was. He could feel it there, beneath the numbing sensation, pulsing from the icy sensation in his head, neck and chest. He felt as though he’d walked in front of a truck. Had he? He didn’t recall. He wanted to get as far away from the pain as he could but it was everywhere, gripping him and holding him down, preventing all movement. He wanted to fight it, to open his eyes through the medication and call out for someone but he was just so….tired. His muscles hurt, his bones hurt, and each drawn out breath pulled at him as if he had shattered from head to toe. But the darkness was just that; dark. If he went back to the darkness where nothing hurt, back to the painless unconsciousness, he might never wake up again and that terrified him more than any level of pain could.

Move, he told himself. Tired is not an excuse. Move.

His hand moved, feeling the blissful stretch of muscles not used but also the inevitable exhaustion which followed. But he could move. He wasn’t sure when he’d last moved but he wriggled his toe and it felt like lifting a mountain above his head. He vaguely remembered this before, trying to shift his toes and not being able to and that had terrified him into slipping back into the darkness. Now, he could move and all that stopped him from trying anything else was that he was tired. Instead he tried to figure out what had happened.

The anaesthetic meant he was in a hospital and he’d had surgery of some kind, probably for whatever had given him flashes of blood and the agony threatening to burst through his skull. He couldn’t remember that. But if he was in a hospital he was aware enough to know that he didn’t want to be there? He wanted to be somewhere else, anywhere else. He wanted to be in his own bed where his pillow shifted his arms and threw blonde hair in his face when he tickled her. He wanted to feel her small hands cradling his cheeks and taking away his darkness as she always did, the hands that kept him loved and grounded. He’d even tolerate an hour long babble on never doing again whatever it was he’d done to end up here. Crashed his bike, maybe? Who knew? But he trusted Felicity to take care of him better than any hospital would.

He had to open his eyes first. For all he knew she was still at work and didn’t know he was there. If he wanted her then he had to open his eyes first. He had to wake up. He had to. Move, Oliver. Move.

“Mr. Queen, can you hear me? I need you to squeeze my hand if you can hear me.”

He didn’t know the voice, and he wasn’t sure what he was doing but according to the voice he was clearly doing something. He called out in his head, but nothing was coming out.

Please, call my girlfriend. Please. Someone needs to have called her. She’s my medical proxy, she needs to be here. I need her here.

“Good, that’s good.”

No, he wasn’t doing good. He needed to be doing better than this. He needed to get out of this hospital, away from this bed. He needed to go home.

Just find me Felicity. She’s all I need.

“You’ve just come out of surgery, Mr. Queen. You’ve been involved in a serious motorcycle accident, but the worst is over and we’re going to take you somewhere to be more comfortable. We just need you to wake up first so we can run a few tests. Can you open your eyes for me?”

He wasn’t aware that he could see anything, but perhaps the trick was staying awake. Perhaps sleeping in the darkness was what was going to hinder him, not help him. He just needed to stay awake longer. A touch of a hand wasn’t enough. He needed to do something. He needed to open his eyes.

I want to see her. I want Felicity.

“Alright, Mr. Queen, you just rest for now,” the voice told him. “We’re going to check your wounds and then we’ll give you some more morphine and let your family in to see you. I’m sure you’re in a lot of pain right now. The surgery was very invasive, but we managed to relieve the swelling on your brain.”

Brain? Swelling? He didn’t have surgery on his brain, did he/ What if his nerves were damaged? His focus? His movement? His speech? What if he didn’t wake up at all? He’d heard plenty of horror stories about brain surgery, and how damaging it could be to have swelling on the brain. He’d heard of comas that people couldn’t wake from, people waking up unable to speak or see, people with no brain function at all.

No, he didn’t want to rest. He had to stay awake, away from the darkness that wanted to claim him. His heart rate began to rise, he could feel it surging against the bruising on his chest when he felt hands touching him. He couldn’t move to scream but the pain was akin to hot pokers branding his skin. The blood behind his eyelids had come from somewhere and he could feel it now in places that gloved hands touched; his shoulders, his neck, his chest, his arm, and fuck, fuck, FUCK, his head.

DON’T TOUCH IT. STOP IT. STOP IT. STOP IT. DON’T—

—there was a blaring siren from beside him, a shout from the voice which had previously been calm, and then there was nothing but darkness.

—

His first thought was that he was dead. His next aware moment came with the sensation of soft hands touching his cheeks and a soothing voice speaking to him. No, not to him. To themselves? It didn’t matter, because the voice was gentle and familiar and it stopped when he heard a sound from his own lips finally pass through successfully.

“F’lis’ty?”

His voice was slurred and thick, but it was enough. He felt the hands on his face still, and the words she spoke became completely focused on him. He chased the voice, seeking her out until there was light in the darkness at last, blonde hair swimming into his vision and slowly focusing until he could see all of her.

“Welcome back,” she said quietly, her thumbs stroking his jawline. “Are you in pain? Does it hurt?”

“No,” he said quietly, a struggle just to get a coherent word out.

“Good,” she whispered back to him, leaning in to place a soft kiss on his lips. “Scared me.”

“Sor-” he went to apologise and his voice choked up, the muscles unused and aching from the tube used during his surgery. “What-?”

“You left the office after we had lunch and your bike was hit by a drunk driver,” she explained with watery eyes. “You didn’t have your helmet on since you weren’t travelling far, which I told you a thousand times is stupid, and now…yeah,” she said, bringing up her hand to wipe tears from her cheek. He wanted to do it for her, but his arms were too heavy to move. “You had a lot of swelling in your brain, they weren’t sure if you were going to make it, and I swear to God, Oliver, if you ever, ever, ever make me sit there and wait to hear if you’ll even live again, I’ll staple that damn helmet to your skull myself,” she said in a tight voice. “But the surgery went well, they said you should make a full recovery.”

Full recovery had never sounded so good. Full recovery meant going home. It meant his own bed, his girlfriend in his arms, his body working, his life continuing.

With every ounce of strength he had, he placed his hand over hers, and she lowered her face to kiss his hand. He usually did that for her, whenever she took hold of his hand, and he had never loved her more than he had in that moment. The warmth that filled him, radiating from his chest, was stronger than whatever painkillers they had given him.

“Sleep,” she told him quietly, raising her head but keeping hold of his hands. “I’ll be right here.”

He didn’t remember falling asleep. But he did remember her hands didn’t let him go.


	8. A Little Patience

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Olicity + wedding planning

After an hour of searching, Oliver finds her in the back of the foundry where the boiler pipes are situated. He’d looked in all her usual hiding spots and it wasn’t until he’d discovered that each one was very void of his favourite blonde that he’d thought of looking in places where she thought he wouldn’t think to look for her. The pipework was where Oliver came to think when the rest of the foundry was too crowded, surrounded by thick pipes and the occasional clanking of expanding and contracting metal that just cleared his mind enough to function.

She was sat with her legs drawn up on the old cot he used to sleep on. It had been a long time since he’d had any need to sleep in the foundry, and it had been delegated to the back of the unit since they’d had to expand other areas. She wasn’t using any of the legroom that the mattress provided, with a small pout on her lips that was a tell-tale sign of stress, judging from the matching pinch between her eyebrows. She stared into the open burner, occasionally poking it with a broken off metal pipe that hadn’t been cleared up since they were broken into a few weeks prior.

He said nothing as he approached her, but she didn’t jump when he nudged her back to get her to shift forwards. She did so, letting him slide onto the cot and didn’t fight his arms when he pulled her back against his chest, though she did keep her knees drawn up.

“Want to tell me what happened?” he asked after a few minutes of silence.

She sighed, relenting as she lay her head back on his shoulder and dropped her poking pole to the flood with a resonating clang sound. “Apparently I’m not very good at being a woman,” she announced.

Oliver’s response was a smirk, his arms winding around her as one hand strayed down to rest on the underside of her thigh, cementing her against him even if she did insist on keeping her knees close to her chest. “I wouldn’t say that,” he murmured against her ear, dropping his lips to the small dip behind her ear that usually drove her crazy.

The scowl between her eyebrows merely deepened as she kept her eyes on the burner.

“So, lunch went badly?” he assumed.

She didn’t answer, just pursed her lips and sat up, pushing away from him as she watched the flames in the burner unit consume…wait, what was that? He sat up fully, one ar still curled around her waist as the other took hold of the pole and used it to lift a slip of fabric that was hanging on the edge of the entry point.

“Felicity, is this…lace?” he asked.

“Maybe,” she said, with a small hint of guilt.

He looked closer to the burning fabric. “This is a veil, isn’t it?” he realised.

“It’s actually a fifty-inch two-tier veil, featuring five inches of authentic French Chantilly lace, feminine and lovely,” she recited perfectly in a voice that wasn’t her own before she dropped back to her disgruntled tone. “It is of popular opinion that I should be wearing one; though not in white. It should be diamond white or ivory tulle.”

Oliver shifted so he was at her side rather than behind her, his face covered with an expression that was halfway between disgusted and frightened. “What, all the time?”

“No,” she said, a smirk breaking through her hardened exterior at last. “For the wedding. Apparently with my mother and your sister involved in the planning it means we have to sit and talk about lace and silk and garters for three hours, so…I retaliated,” she explained, indicating to the lace and guiding his hand so that it was almost dropping it back into the flames.

“I can see that,” he noted, dropping the last of the fabric into the fire to watch it burn. “I thought we agreed that the only lace, silk and garters involved in the wedding was for the wedding night?”he asked, sinking back to lean against the wall and drawing her with him. She allowed her legs to relax this time, half-laying against his side.

“I tried to tell them that,” she sighed. “But they have…other plans.”

“Do I want to know what these ‘other plans’ are?” he asked.

“Unless you want to hear about plate designs, dress styles and a horrible rendition of shoes that I refuse to buy because I have better taste, I wouldn’t ask,” she groaned, leaning her head against his shoulder. “Really, I don’t see why the shoes have to match the dress, it’s not like anyone will be able to see my feet anyway if my dress reaches the floor. I could wear sneakers underneath for all they know.”

Oliver chuckled, drawing his arms around her. “I suppose I shouldn’t tell you about the bachelor party planning then?”

She looked up at him unfairly. “Tell me it doesn’t involve heavy drinking, Vegas and property damage?”

He grinned, smoothing back her hair. “I could, but that would be a lie,” he grinned, leaning in to kiss her. “Diggle’s got big plans, apparently. I can’t talk him out of them.”

Felicity groaned, pulling the collar of his shirt down so they were almost eye level. “Take me with you,” she pleaded. “Don’t make me have a girls night.”

He couldn’t hold back his laugh. “It’s not a girls night, it’s a bachelorette party.”

“With girls. I hate girls nights,” she told him, still gripping his collar.

“Just one night,” he said, tugging her further into his embrace so that she was seated in his lap. His arms wound around her just enough that it was easy to nudge her lips with his own as he spoke. “One night, and when you get back we can make it all better,” he tempted, his lips trailing down her jawline with an obvious meaning behind his tease.

She bit her lip, enjoying his caress for just a moment before she pulled back abruptly. “Actually, that’s not fitting with my maid of honor’s plans,” she told him.

He went to say something but stopped, looking up at her with confusion on his features. “Excuse me?”

She shrugged, planting her hands on his chest so that he couldn’t tug her back down to his lips. “Apparently we should be…you know…saving ourselves for the wedding night.”

He took a long look down her body before he answered with a dry mouth. “Are you saying there’s no sex until the wedding night?”

“None at all.”

“Starting now?”

“Starting four hours ago, actually,” she confirmed.

He gaped for a long few moments, struggling to find the words. “But we’re not getting married for five weeks, Felicity,” he half whined. “Five weeks.”

“They said it would add some purity to the relationship,” she told him.

“No,” he protested with a small growl, something he knew she adored but even that didn’t weaken her resolve. “We don’t need purity, we’re doing perfectly fine with dirty and hot.”

She smirked at that reaction, leaning dangerously close to his lips. “I tried protest, but they’re very firm about it. No sex.”

“I can’t go five weeks,” he said insistently. “I couldn’t last five days. In fact, with where you’re sitting right now I doubt I’d last five minutes. The blood rush might stop my heart.” She shifted in his lap as if to get comfortable, but all it did was press their groins together and draw a groan from his lips. “Felicity, that’s not fair…”

“Five weeks.”

He kissed her, hot, filthy and with every convincing moan he could. “Five minutes,” he countered.

“Five weeks,” she repeated firmly. “Or I’ll feel the wrath of the bridesmaids, which means you’ll feel the wrath of me.”

He turned his lips to her throat, running them down to her collarbone. “But I love your wrath…”

“Look what happened to the veil,” she said, burner unit and raising an eyebrow. “Still love it?”

“I love you,” he countered, before he took advantage of her position and flipped them so that she was laying on the cot beneath him. She was amused, but there was a hint of passion seeping into her gaze that drew a grin from him, speaking with his lips close to hers. “If we have to wait five weeks before I can touch you again, I’m going to end up bending you over the altar the second they announce us man and wife,” he told her, his husky voice alone enough to make her shudder, but he drew her earlobe between his teeth just to draw his favorite moan from her lips.

“Is that a promise?” she teased, as her leg wound around to trap his hips against hers.

He growled again as he crushed his lips to hers. Between her thighs gripping his waist and his hands holding hers down, it wasn’t clear who was pinning who, but it was pinning them together in all the right places to make them forget all about this new rule. Despite the layers of clothing between them, they rutted together, moans falling from their lips without control. Oliver had just started inching his hand beneath Felicity’s shirt when he pulled away, sliding from between her legs to stand up.

“Well, I have some stuff I need to do, so…”

She looked up at him as if he had bought physical harm to a kitten right in front of her. “You’re damn right you’ve got stuff to do,” she said breathlessly. “Now get back here and do it.”

He grinned down at her. “Oh, I will,” he said confidently, allowing her to take note of how deliberately his eyes dragged over her body. “…in five weeks.”

Her eyes narrowed at him. “Five minutes.”  
  


He smirked, even though the tone of her voice made him want to pin her back to the cot and change ‘minutes’ to ‘seconds’. “No, I clearly remember you said ‘five weeks’. I think it coincided with the wedding.”

She glared at him and he knew that look clearly. It was a glare that told him he had a short time to leave her presence before she did unspeakable things to the internet and shamed him for all eternity. It was a glare that he had never argued against, until now. He simply leaned down and kissed her lips with a frustrating softness.

“See you in five weeks, Felicity.”

He could feel the glare cutting into the back of his head as he walked back to the more common area of the foundry, hearing the sound of metal striking metal where she had clearly thrown the pole somewhere out of reach. He knew she’d get her revenge tonight, but at least she wasn’t angry about lace any more.


	9. Silence

“Felicity, come on.”

No answer.

“Felicity?”

Nothing.

“Fe-li-ci-ty.”

Silence.

Oliver sighed, running his hand through his hair as he gripped a handful of the strands that rested at the top of his neck. It had been getting longer recently, and she didn’t like it too long, he knew. It reminded them both too much of the Ollie he used to be before the island, of the partyboy who had sank in the Queens Gambit and never resurfaced. She didn’t like it too short either, because then it reminded her too much of their dabble with the League of Assassins, and he’d almost settled it to a perfect length in between.

“Felicity, please, this is getting…ridiculous.”

There was still no reply. He sighed again. This was getting increasingly frustrating.

“Come on, there’s something I have to tell you.”

But still, no answer.

He wasn’t sure what he’d done to incur this silence, but it was chilling now. She’d had her stubborn silences before, coldness seeping in as she tapped away angrily at a keyboard until he came to his senses and apologised, but this was a freeze he wasn’t prepared for. The lack of words from the woman who always talked.

“It’s important,” he tempted.

Nothing.

Perhaps he could earn forgiveness somehow? Just to hear her voice. He didn’t care if she was telling him that she was mad at him for blaming himself again - a frequent argument - or whether she was talking about technical specs he couldn’t even begin to understand. Either was better than hearing nothing. But how? He’d already bought her flowers every day since, something that would always bring a smile to her face, but he wasn’t seeing that smile now.

“You know that you want to know, you can’t resist a secret,” he added with a slight tease in his tone.

That should tempt her. The I-know-something-you-don’t-know. She fell for it every time.

But not this time.

He sighed, looking up and facing her as much as he could given that she wasn’t actually looking back at him. “Felicity, please…?”

Again, nothing.

He snapped.

“Fine, you know what? You’re not going to talk to me, but I’m going to talk to you.”

This time, the silence didn’t shock him. She’d let him talk, let him say his piece. She always did, only cutting him off if he was being ridiculous. That part was more familiar to him than this unneeded cold shoulder.

“Tommy took his first steps this morning.”

The fact that the air was silent this time was heartbreaking, but he continued.

“It was actually kinda funny.” It was at the time, but not now. “We were at Digg’s, and he went four steps the first time, from Lyla to me, but he fell just before and tried to grab for something to hold on to, which ended up being Sara’s hair. Sara screamed, and I don’t know which one of them was more upset.”

Silence was the sound that he hated most in the world. Where was the excited Felicity that he knew and loved? He lowered his voice again, shaking his head. “I’m sorry you had to miss it. Digg filmed it, I think, but…”

He knew that he wasn’t going to get an answer, even now, and he stood from the ground. There were more flowers in his hand, even though they stood out from the array of more glamorous bouquets from his previous visits. They were orange - her least favourite colour for a flower. “Here, I got you uh…” he trailed off with a small shake. “I don’t know what they are, but I know they’re not your favourite. But the usual place isn’t open on Sunday’s so there weren’t many options…it was kind of a rush stop.” She didn’t reach for them, naturally, and he put them down before her with no surface space to rest them on, carefully placing them where they wouldn’t be damaged.

He stood before her, looking down with a heavy sigh and a choking sensation in his throat that still floored him every time he had to leave her. “We miss you, Felicity. I miss you. Tommy misses his mom. So, any time you feel like you’re ready to come home, we’ll be waiting for you.”

He nodded to himself one final time, still instinctively leaning in for the kiss that wouldn’t be returned and pulling away, swearing under his breath as he went back to his car. He left behind the words that were right before him the entire time, words that didn’t need to be spoken because they were etched in granite for the world to read, words that had been carefully chosen, agonised over and one day words that their son would read too.

Felicity Meghan Queen, nee. Smoak.   
31-05-1989 - 15-05-2018   
Beloved wife, mother and friend   
Sleep well, beautiful.


	10. Fantasy vs. Real Life

When Oliver was seventeen years old, he imagined his future wife to be, no other way to phrase it, hot as hell.

He thought he’d marry a supermodel. He imagined turning up to his father’s business galas with a brunette with mysterious eyes, the kind of beautiful that makes every man in the room stop in their tracks. He imagined a big white wedding, no expense spared, with her wearing a dress that cost tens of thousands of dollars. He imagined the Plaza in June, his mother talking her way into every part of the wedding that would be the biggest event the Queens had ever hosted.

Oliver imagined that his wife would be the perfect partner; a woman in the stress and a demon in the sheets. He imagined weekends where entire days were spent in bed with bare skin, bare inhibitions and sex. So much sex. Sex all the time. His wife would be the gorgeous and slim even when she bore his children, with one of those perfect, tight bumps that you saw celebrities sporting even in the later months of pregnancy.

Oliver’s children would be well behaved, gorgeous, and smart. They’d get into the best schools in the country and excel their school work. He imagined perfect children, perfect wife, perfect home, perfect everything. Because he was Oliver Jonas Queen, and there was nothing suitable except perfection.

When Oliver Queen is thirty-two years old, he marries Felicity Smoak. Life is nothing like he imagines it.

They’ve been together for two years when he finally sees his wife-to-be walk up the aisle towards him and become Mrs. Queen. They don’t have a big wedding; far from it, in fact. After months of clashing on the ideas of what each would constitute a perfect wedding, they end up flying their closest friends and family to Las Vegas and marrying at midday on a Wednesday afternoon. His best friend and former bodyguard is his best man, and Felicity’s given away by her mother, instead of her absentee father.

Married life with Felicity is vastly different than he imagined. There’s a lot of sex, but it’s not throwing-against-the-wall, quickie-in-the-kitchen like he imagined. Well, it was once, but they knocked three picture frames off the wall and were almost caught by Thea in the kitchen. Sex with Felicity is passionate in ways that Oliver never imagined. It’s clumsy, it’s comfortable, it’s fun. Most nights they end up laughing as much as moaning as they fall into bed together.

Instead of the satin nightgowns he imagined in his youth, Oliver admires Felicity most when she’s wandering through the bedroom half-awake in her cartoon print pyjamas. Sure, there’s a very particular silk set she brings out on special occasions, but there’s something very special about realising he was making eye contact with a cartoon cat while admiring his wife’s backside one morning. When they wake up, they bicker over morning breath and who’s going to make the coffee - a battle he always loses.

Oliver loves his wife. He loves her through the way she snores when she gets a cold and her nose is blocked. He loves her because she wears a ridiculous Christmas sweater even though she’s Jewish, and she loves him when he screws up by lighting an entire menorah in one sitting. He loves her when she freaks out and accidentally beats up a security guard with her purse thinking that they’re paparazzi. He loves her through and beyond the awful food poisoning episode of 2018 where they spent forty-eight hours cohabiting the bathroom floor and learning a side of each other they never imagined they’d share. He loves it most when she rambles and goes on her adorable rants because now she’s his wife and he can just kiss those fluttering lips until she’s quiet.

Just as he imagined, though, his wife is gorgeous when she’s pregnant. Felicity blossoms, not with slim thighs and a tight bump, but with delicious curves that make him crave her all the more. There’s a lot of puking, a lot of new body reactions, a lot of new things in general, but then there’s a new little baby and it’s all theirs. And he’s not perfect, because Tommy’s born seven weeks early and needs a lot of extra help before he can go home, but overall their little boy is perfection.

Things get harder after that. Oliver never imagined he’d spend their son’s second year of life dealing with fertility issues. Oliver never imagined in his life that they’d spend a night in tears because as much as they love their son they wanted a bigger family they’re told they can’t have. His wife blames herself in a destructive way he knew she used to fight him out of, but he’s stuck in the same rut and it takes them a long time to accept that their family of three is as big as it’ll get.

Ava’s a blessing. A miracle. Even the doctors can’t explain it, but they don’t argue. They have a little girl when Tommy turns five years old, and their bed becomes a little fuller on Saturday mornings, and after a few years their son has to share control of the remote.

His children struggle in school. It’s just a simple fact. Tommy’s dyslexic, and they pour over parenting blogs and support information which leads to a family interest in homework which all pays off when Tommy takes second place in the school spelling bee when he’s twelve years old. Ava’s mind wanders, and she finds it hard to focus on school, ever the daydreamer. She’s good with computers and a fantastic artist though, and they find her focus to easily switch when they let her play to her strengths around the curriculum. Despite the struggle, Oliver’s present and applauding on his feet when his children graduate high school and college with honours.

His son takes over the family business as one of the best salesmen and negotiators the company’s ever seen, when Oliver retires. Despite the frantic concern, he ends up taking over both sides of the family business, and the site of her son in the hood is one that Felicity never gets used to. His daughter takes over the applied sciences department that Felicity built from the ground up and eventually, Oliver’s watching his children give united press conferences as the joint CEO’s of Queen Incorporated and–

“How is this my life?” Oliver wonders when his daughter’s dancing on her wedding day, and his wife’s hand slips into his. She smiles at him, squeezing his hand.

“Because it is,” she summaries simply, and with wrinkles around her eyes and grey hairs amid the blonde, she’s still the most beautiful woman he’s ever seen.

When he was seventeen years old, Oliver Queen dreams of the perfect wife, of a perfect home with his perfect family.

Real life delivers far better than he ever imagined.


	11. Uncle Oliver's Weird Camping Fetish

Felicity sat stubbornly in the front seat of the car. Her arms were folded over her stomach like a petulant child, even her lower lip was stuck out in a pout. Her jaw was set, staring down into her lap and she did not have tears in her eyes and –

“You do a tiny bit,” Oliver said from beside her, showing her that she’d spoken out loud.

She didn’t move her face, her angry eyes flickering to him. If looks could have killed, she’d at least have been in the opportune place to dispose of his body.

The passenger door was open, Oliver leaning in through the open space to where she refused to move from her seat. “Do you really want to spend the entire weekend sat in the car?” he asked her, his voice showing that he was desperately trying to remain patient with her.

“You said we’d be in signal range,” she shot back at him, gesturing down at the tablet in her lap. “And look at my baby, it’s dying, Oliver. It’s near death. I can’t even check the weather!”

“I said we needed a weekend away from everything to unwind,” he said, stressing that final word. “Something you were all for. Besides, we have a satellite phone for emergencies.”

“This is a state of the art tech system, Oliver,” she said, waving the tablet in her face. “I programmed it myself, this baby managed to pick up wifi signal in Nanda Parbat. Nanda Parbat. What kind of forest did you bring us to where I can’t find internet access?” she asked him desperately.

“The kind that you can relax in,” he explained, taking her hand and releasing it from the tablet, locking it securely in the glove compartment. “Come on, the weather’s beautiful. We’ll see if it’s going to change. Emails can wait. Internet can wait. Do you know what can’t wait?” He flashed her his most charming smile. “Being part of our god-daughter’s first camping trip - her first real vacation. So, come on. Out of the car.”

She did get out of the car, disgruntled as she was, and no sooner has she closed the car door behind her she was assaulted by a flying mass of dark curly hair, as four-year-old Sara crawled her way up Felicity’s leg and onto her hip. Sara gave her a cocked head and a frown. “Cartoons?” she asked, looking into the car window over her shoulder.

“No cartoons this weekend, little girl,” Felicity said, as they made their way to the small group, purposefully ignoring Oliver’s grin as he turned back to them.

“Why?” Sara whined.

“Because Uncle Oliver’s got a weird camping fetish,” she muttered under her breath.

–

They’d set up in a small clearing right next to the woodland, where there was a stream that opened up to a wider mouth of the river at the edge of the clearing. Despite it being a registered camp site, it came with the advantage of being very secluded. It may have been far enough away from most of civilisation, but they weren’t entirely closed off from the road even if it felt that way.

Oliver, of course, took to camping like a fish to water. His time away had been more a compulsory camping trip and he wanted try it with a more laid-back approach. John and Lyla were naturally set to camping in some respect because of their tours as well, and the three of them got stuck into setting up their tents on the flat ground and Felicity explored the waters edge with a firm grip on Sara’s hand.

Sara squealed in delight when she saw a fish dive completely out of the water, turning her body around to call out to John and “DADDY, DID YOU SEE THE FISH? THERE’S FISH IN THE WATER!” Despite her distaste for camping, Felicity was grinning at Sara’s discovery of the outdoors far different to the parks of Starling City, and when she followed the girl’s gaze she found Oliver watching her with a smile she couldn’t quite describe. It made her stomach flip, and she turned back to the water just in time to stop Sara slipping on a wet rock.

–

With Sara’s fascination with the fish in the water, fishing had been their first activity of the day. John had set up a fishing rod for Sara to hold, and she held onto it gleefully while the two men stood with her, showing her how to cast out and fish on her very own line.

About twenty feet away, Felicity and Lyla had set to the real essentials - coffee. They’d set up an area where they could eat and had pulled over a small log for them to sit on as they drank, both watching the three at the water’s edge with smiles. Felicity was starting to lose the itch in her hands for her tablet, the urge to tinker falling away because if Oliver could look this carefree then so could she.

He didn’t just look carefree, he looked happy. Happy Oliver was a far greater occurrence in their lives now, but there were levels of happy that she could pinpoint with far greater clarity. The level when Thea had told him he was going to be an uncle - after he’d threatened Roy endlessly - had been a personal favourite of hers, the only reason the pair hadn’t joined them for the weekend is because pregnancy and sleeping on the ground hadn’t been something Thea was enthusiastic about.

But this level of happy was near on delirious. Oliver looked like he’d be happy enough to spend every day of his life out here, joining Sara in her loud declarations of joy every time she saw the splash of a fish.

“Suits him,” Lyla commented from beside her, her shoulder knocking against Felicity’s. In the last few years, they’d fallen into an easy friendship which was closer than Felicity had ever had with another woman.

She hummed in question, tearing her eyes away from the trio to look at her. “I think he enjoys using the Lian Yu survival skills for better memories,” she said quietly, raising her travel cup to her lips with both hands.

“I didn’t mean camping,” Lyla smirked. “I meant Sara.” Felicity’s eyebrows shot up at the same time Oliver’s arm did to stop an excited Sara from stumbling. When Felicity said nothing, Lyla gave her a more questioning look. “He looks at her like she’s the best thing in the world, then we do things like this altogether and he acts like this is all he wants for his life.” Felicity said nothing again, and Lyla’s interest peaked when she bit her lip. “You two disappeared on this grand gesture road trip, come back talking about this master plan you both have, and all that’s happened in the last three years is an engagement. I gotta say, Johnny and I are starting to wonder what this master plan is.”

Felicity’s head raised up, tapping her far-too-expensive engagement ring against the side of her travel cup. “The plan still applies,” she said vaguely. “The plan was that was just…live,” she explained. “Everything before felt like a pressure, like we were working to a time scale that we didn’t set. We’re not doing that any more. We haven’t set a wedding date because we don’t want something huge and fancy. We want just…us. One day you’ll get a phone call to meet us at the courthouse, or we’ll fly you guys out to meet us in Vegas, and it’ll happen. No time scales. No pressure.”

But there was a tremor in her voice as she finished, and she looked at Lyla nervously. Lyla, for all her good graces, tried not to look too distracted when Sara ran over to them asking for a snack, and she quickly passed her a bag of apple slices and told her to hurry back to her father. She turned on the log, facing Felicity entirely. “Talk,” she ordered quietly.

Felicity’s eyes flickered to Oliver, checking he was still distracted before biting her lip. “So you know how anti-camping I’ve been?” she asked. “Well, I thought I was going to be…not in a position to be in the middle of nowhere because biology is a bitch,” she explained in a jumble of words. Lyla nodded in understanding. “Except that doesn’t really apply and I’m kinda….late,” she explained.

“Late? How late?” Lyla asked.

“Three weeks,” she muttered under her breath, all too aware of how good Oliver’s senses were.

Lyla leaned in a little to lower her voice, sounding excited. “Have you been to the doctor? Have you done a test?” she asked.

“I’ve done a few tests,” she mumbled.

“And it said?”

“One didn’t work, and eleven said positive.” Lyla’s jaw dropped a little. “What?” Felicity asked defensively. “I was nervous, and I wanted to know and wanted to be sure and…”

“Lis,” she said softly, her hands covering hers. “Does he know?”

She shook her head firmly. “Not yet, but…”

“Felicity!” Oliver’s voice interrupted them, jogging over and tugging on her hand until she was standing up. “Come on.”

“Where are we going?” she asked.

He pulled her towards the mounted fishing rod, circling his arms around her as he lifted it, placing his hands over hers to guide her. “You are about to catch your very first fish,” he declared proudly, not even listening to her protest that she wasn’t a fisherman, woman, whatever, as he pointed out to where the line disappeared into the water. “Look, it’s already, hooked, the waiting’s already done.”

So she reeled in her very first fish, a very proud little fish that wouldn’t do for dinner for them, but made a very good Sara-sized after dinner snack. And if she’d spent more time paying attention to how Oliver’s body fit around hers, well, that’d be her secret.

—

“Daddy, can you hear the owls?”

“Go to sleep, Sara.”

“And the trees are making noises too.”

“Close your eyes, Sara.”

“Was that a bear?”

“There are no bears here.”

“But Daddy-”

“Sara, it’s bedtime.”

—

Biting their lips to keep from laughing, Oliver and Felicity didn’t envy Lyla and Diggle at all with their daughter trying to keep them up all night. She was excited over the trip, who could blame her? Felicity had even managed to keep up with them and the grand outdoors by the end of the day. Now, they were hidden away in their own tent for the night, just a few feet away, with the unspoken promise that they wouldn’t be getting up to no good.

They were already in trouble. It hadn’t been the possibility of a bear that Sara had heard, it was Oliver growling into Felicity’s neck.

They’d stopped quickly over that.

“You surprised me today,” Oliver whispered across to her as she jammed her still-freezing feet between his. “The whole camping thing, I didn’t think you’d actually enjoy it.”

“It’s not that I don’t enjoy camping,” she told him. “I used to like it on the school trips, I just missed my wifi,” she explained.

He fixed her with a stare. “And what’s the real reason?” he asked her, with a small glint in his eye.

She bit her lip, caught out on her cover up. “Okay, so when I tell you, you have to remember that we promised to be quiet, okay?” she mumbled.

At that, his face broke out in a grin. “Felicity…I know,” he told her, like a schoolboy caught with his hands in the cookie jar.

“Know what?” she asked.

He shifted in their sleeping bag, moving his arm so that he could touch his hand to her lower stomach. Her eyes widened slightly. “I know,” he repeated, his voice softer this time.

“How?” she asked, the only word she could form. She’d been half-killing herself trying to figure out how to tell him, and he’d known?

“Do you really think you can hide that many tests in one trash can and I wouldn’t see them?” he pointed out with a small smirk. “And the fact that you’ve disappeared to pee six times since we came to bed.”

She actually pouted a little, but then he leaned forward and pressed his lips to hers, and nothing else mattered. The outdoors didn’t matter. Camping didn’t matter. That little rock just under her back didn’t matter. All that mattered was that he was happy, that he was kissing her and that had to be a good thing. Even still, when they parted, she kept her hand fisted in his sweater and gave him a nervous smile.

“I know this wasn’t part of the plan…”

He cut her off with another kiss. “Felicity…” he whispered, in that way that made her weak in the knees. “Being happy with you, building a life with you…that was always part of the plan,” he reminded her. His hand still hadn’t moved. “You are the plan.”

Her nervous expression turned into a slightly more eager kiss, her arm slipping around him. She shifted closer to him, breaking away before it could lead to something more heated, but he wasn’t quite as reluctant, peppering small kisses over her face and along her jaw.

“Mother of my child,” he said quietly, his voice rolling over the words as he did her name. “Been waiting a long time to call you that,” he added with a small hitch in his voice.

“So we’re good?” she checked, swallowing thickly, because damn it, he was too perfect for words. “Because I’m good with this, if we’re in this together.”

His other hand found hers, tapping his thumb over her engagement ring. “We’re in this together,” he assured her. “You’re pretty much stuck with me. For all you know I’ve hidden a tracking device in the diamond.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Oliver,” she told him bluntly. “I checked it for that three days after you gave it to me.”


	12. 2am Phonecalls

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Note: This is entirely dedicated to the wonderful smoakd who essentially co-wrote the plot to this. I can’t even take credit for half of this, as this came from her outstanding brain. For you, wifey!

“Felicity.”

“John? It’s late, is everything okay?”

“No.”

“John…”

“It’s Oliver.”

–

“Tommy. Tommy, wake up, baby.”

Tommy Queen blearily opens his eyes when Felicity starts to sit him up despite the fact that he’s mostly asleep. It’s half past two in the morning, but she doesn’t have a choice. There’s no one who can babysit at such short notice when they’re all heading to the hospital. Hospital. Oliver. The words hit her again and she tries not to scream. She wants to scream. She wants to cry a lot more than she wants to scream, but she can’t do that. It’ll scare Tommy.

“Wha-?”

Tommy’s sat on the bed, his legs hanging off the edge as he slumps forward onto himself and Felicity pulls his coat on over his pyjamas. There’s no time for getting dressed. She’s barely had time to put shoes on and her own coat before waking him, and she’s still wearing the panda print pyjamas and one of Oliver’s hoodies beneath it.

“We’ve got to go out for a while, Tommy, okay?” she says, her voice soft but frantic.

“Don’t wanna,” Tommy complains, laying back down where he sat and curling up on his pillow even though he’s wearing his coat as well.

Felicity merely takes advantage of his prone state and puts his soccer-ball shaped slippers over his thick winter socks. She’s concentrating enough to know that it’s freezing outside, but their scarves and gloves are already in her bag at the door. “We’ve got to go see Daddy,” she tells him.

“Daddy,” Tommy repeats, lifting his head up with more interesting. “Daddy’s home?”

“Tommy,” she whispers, sitting him up and making him look at her as she puts her hand on his face. “Baby, Daddy had an accident, so we’ve got to go to the hospital right now, okay?”

Tommy frowns at her. He’s only four years old, she knows he can’t possibly comprehend. “Daddy’s hurt?”

“We have to go see him now, okay?” she tells him. “We have to go make sure Daddy’s okay, so I need you to be a good boy for me right now, please?”

Tommy nods, and folds easily into his mother’s arms as Felicity lifts him from his bed.

–

Felicity ignores the stares of the rest of the waiting area and gives the name of her husband when. They’re wearing winter hats, slippers and coats over their pyjamas, and clearly a sight. While she’s waiting impatiently for room details, she hears a shout of her name, and Diggle’s standing there waiting for her.

“John,” she breathes, moving towards him.

Thea’s moments behind him, her face distraught but she forces a smile and lifts a confused Tommy out of Felicity’s arms. From the look on her face, Felicity wants to cry. Thea was supposed to be on patrol with Oliver that night, and if she looked that devastated already… “Hey, there’s my favourite little guy,” Thea cooes in a thick voice. “Why don’t you come with me and let Mommy talk to Uncle Digg? I got you your favourite hot chocolate as a special treat…”

Thea wanders into a private waiting area and Felicity’s legs buckle slightly without the reassuring weight of her son in her arms. Digg’s arms on her shoulder’s steady her. “Is he–?”

“He’s alive,” he assures her immediately, and she lets out a breath that has her ducking her head.

“What happened? Can we see him?”

“He’s in surgery,” Diggle explains, and the tears fall onto her cheeks again. “They were patrolling in the Glades up on the rooftops, he went to jump and hit some ice on the last second. It threw him off balance and he fell six stories into an alley.”

Felicity’s hands fly up to her mouth with a loud gasp. That height held frightening possibilities even if Digg had already confirmed that he was alive. Had he hit his head? How many bones had he broken? How badly damaged was he? She thanks god for their wonderful health insurance plan that covered any possibility, but Oliver’s body is his temple, and he worked so hard to condition it that she doesn’t know if he’d survive losing any mobility.

“He wasn’t awake when we got to him,” Digg tells her, sparing her no detail as he guides her into a nearby chair and sits beside her. His hand never leaves her back. “They’re not sure what the damage is yet. They took him into surgery as soon as we got here. They said they’ll let us know as soon as there’s any news.”

She lowers her head into her hands and takes calming breaths. She can feel her chest restricting at the idea he may not survive whatever surgery they’re doing and then she has to break her sons heart and tell him that Daddy’s not coming home, and that thought has her choking down a fearful sob.

“Hey,” Digg tells her softly, stroking his hand up and down her back as she tries to compose herself. “He will beat this. He’s stronger than a patch of ice. But you need to take a few minutes and get your Mommy head on,” he reminds her. “Tommy and Oliver need you to be strong for them right now.”

–

“I want my Daddy.”

“I want Daddy too.”

–

Four hours later, their entire extended family is filling the private waiting area with the exception of Lyla and Sara. Diggle didn’t want them up in the middle of the night, but Lyla’s coming by as soon as she’s taken Sara to school. She also tells them that she’ll take care of Tommy’s pre-school for the next few days and let them know he won’t be there, and she’ll bring them some clothes from home to change into. She thinks of things that Felicity didn’t even think of.

Thea’s sat with Felicity’s head on her shoulder, with Tommy curled into his mother’s lap. He’d finally fallen asleep an hour ago, but he’d been quietly calm for the rest of the time they’d been there, softly telling Thea about his day at pre-school and the dinosaur he’d painted. Felicity held him as he slept, her hand cupping his head against her shoulder so he wouldn’t fall off her lap, but her own eyes couldn’t close. From her perch at Thea’s side, she watched the clock on the far wall. Whenever her eyes flickered down, she met the eyes of Diggle, who was sat beneath it. Laurel’s beside him, and one time when she looks up, she realises that Barry and his team have joined them. She doesn’t ask how or why, she just closes her eyes and rests against her son and her sister-in-law.

“Family of Oliver Queen?”

She’s on her feet so fast that Thea barely has time to take her nephew and hoist his sleeping body onto her hip as Felicity moves towards the doctor. “I’m his wife. Is he okay?” she asked in a croaked voice.

“He’s taken a lot of damage, but he made it through the surgery,” the doctor tells them, and there’s a collective sigh of relief throughout the room. “He’s very lucky, but he’s not out of the woods yet. We’ve removed his ruptured spleen, but there was some existing damage to his knee that was incredibly escalated with the way his leg was injured. We’ve repaired what we can, but when he wakes up he’s going to be in a lot of pain.”

“He’s definitely going to wake up?” Felicity checks. “Because sometimes people survive surgeries and then-”

She’s cut off by Digg’s arm around her shoulders.

“I can assure you, Mrs. Queen, we’re confident he will wake up. There were a few complications with his surgery but nothing out of the ordinary, and everything was handled perfectly by my team. If he’d sustained a head or spinal injury then this would be an entirely different conversation, but luckily that isn’t something we have to worry about.”

Felicity doesn’t want to think about that.

“Can she see him?” Digg asks from her side.

The doctor nods. “One at a time, I’m afraid.”

–

Thea, bless her soul, takes Tommy again.

Felicity follows the doctor to the ICU. That scares her. The ICU, she discovers, is a frighteningly peaceful place, and the haunting silence of Oliver’s room is punctuated by the machines supporting him. There’s a little part of her that’s jealous that someone else’s tech is supporting him. Supporting Oliver is her job, and hers only, and she remembers rewiring a defibrillator once to save him, so she hopes this equipment is a bit better because her hands are shaking too much to fix anything today.

Her hands are shaking as she takes hold of his, lowers her head to them, and cries into his limp palm.

“You can wake up any time,” she says afterwards, when she’s alone with his still form and she finally thinks of something to say. “Now, preferably. You’re scaring us a bit. A lot.”

He doesn’t move yet, and she hates that.

Oliver always comes when she needs him.

Except now he can’t.

–

She takes a break from his side when Thea comes into the room. Lyla arrived with some things for them and Tommy’s awake, so she’s back on Mom duty while wife duty is apparently suspended. Thea needs a moment with her brother anyway, so she tags out to make everybody happy and make sure that her and her son are okay. It pains her to leave Oliver’s side, because he’s vulnerable. He relies on her to keep him focused when he’s vulnerable. He’ll only relinquish that part of himself when they’re together, and to leave him when he’s more vulnerable than ever makes her feel guilty enough that she has to compose herself before she goes back to the waiting area.

She loves Lyla more than she ever has done before.

Lyla remembers a pack of baby-wipes that she can clean herself with, a change of clothes for both her and Tommy, and even a hairbrush. She remembers their toothbrushes and she pulls a chair into the tiny bathroom gets Tommy to clean his teeth in front of the mirrors there and encourages him to wash his face while Felicity stands stunned and is just thankful that they ever managed to have this woman come into their lives. She brings colouring books and stories and and entire rucksack of entertainment for Tommy.

Felicity leaves the hairbrush out for Thea, but she excuses herself for a few hours to get changed. She returns after only an hour, then sits down with Tommy and starts colouring with him.

Aunt Thea is the family favourite for a thousand reasons. Felicity is sure Tommy will forget many things about this moment in their lives, but he will never forget Aunt Thea being there with him for it.

–

Mid-afternoon, Oliver is taken off the ventilator. It’s a tense moment but he continues to breath well on his own and he’s even moved to a less high-risk area. With the private room they can afford, there’s room for them all inside, but at that time people start to leave the family to their privacy. Lyla leaves when she has to collect Sara from school. She offers to take Tommy for the night but he refuses to leave Felicity’s side. Laurel leaves a while after. Digg stays, but he comes and goes and Felicity wonders how many phone calls he’s handling for them, because she doesn’t remember arranging anything with the insurance company but she definitely remembers Digg bringing her things to sign. Thea stays because she’s just as scared as Felicity is, and she’s grateful for the steadfast company of her sister-in-law because Tommy goes silent when he sees how different his father looks in a hospital bed.

She goes home at night, though. Then they’re alone.

The sun goes down, and Felicity brings their pyjamas back out. They curl together into the chair at Oliver’s side, and read four of their favourite bedtime stories together. She’s already managed to teach Tommy to read several words on his own, but they read The Gruffalo together and he’s memorised every single word and ends up reading the second half of it to Daddy all on his own and he’d be so so proud, wouldn’t he, Mommy?

Tommy wants to lie down soon after that, and she manages to curl him around Oliver’s side and leverage one of Oliver’s arms around him securely, sitting right behind him. Tommy’s facing away from her now, and when he cuddles up to Oliver he suddenly looks very small. She strokes his back as her other hand grips Oliver’s, and she presses a kiss to the back of her son’s head.

“Will Daddy be awake in the morning?” he asks.

“I hope so, baby.”

She wants to say yes, she really does.

“He just needs a nap, doesn’t he?” Tommy checks.

“He does,” she says, choking back the tears that are suffocating her again. “We just need to let him take a nap for as long as he needs to get better.”

“It’s taking a really long time,” Tommy says with a whine in his voice.

“I know, sweetheart,” she continues to stroke his back. “But the doctors said he’s going to be okay when he wakes up. We need to be patient, okay?”

“I don’t want to,” he says as he starts to cry quietly into Oliver’s armpit.

Felicity leans over her tiny boy, her lips firmly against his stubby hair that reminds her so much of Oliver’s and she speaks while kissing him over and over. She tries to assure him that Daddy’s going to be okay, and Daddy’s going to come home with them soon and don’t be scared, baby, Daddy’s never going to leave us.

He falls asleep with tears on his cheeks. Felicity saves hers until after he’s asleep.

–

Oliver wakes at eleven o’clock that night. His eyes flicker open slowly at first, but he’s been out for so long with only minimal painkillers (at his written request in his insurance paperwork) that he doesn’t need to fight through the anaesthesia. There’s a moment of confusion when he shifts and Felicity’s up on her feet in an instant, leaning over Tommy because she couldn’t fall asleep, and she places her hands on his face, grounding him as he comes back to himself, kissing him wherever she can reach.

The moment he’s alert, he takes a deep breath and his arms come up and wrap furiously around the son in his arms. He winces, and Felicity can tell that he’s hurting badly, but he buries his face into his son’s hair and inhales deeply. Then one arm is coming up to reach for her without pulling away from him and she’s joining this awkward embrace that feels better than any homecoming she’s ever had before.

“Don’t ever scare us like that again,” she tells him in a broken, tear-strained voice.

–

The nurses bring him more painkillers, frown at the idea of him curled up in bed with another person but Oliver simply refuses to allow anyone to move Tommy from his side, nor does he want to wake him. Felicity sinks onto the other side of the bed, crossing her legs beneath her as she waits for the nurse to finish checking the few machines he’s still linked to and leave them in peace.

The moment she’s gone, Oliver takes her hand and closes his eyes. “I thought that was it. I was falling and I…” he swallows thickly, and maybe it’s the painkillers but there are tears on his cheeks as well as hers. “I’m done, Felicity.”

“You have to be careful, Oliv-”

“No, careful isn’t good enough,” he says quietly, looking down between his sleeping son and their hands joined with their wedding rings. “It was too close this time. I have too much to lose now.”

Felicity swallows and takes a shaky breath. She’s wanted to hear this from Oliver for so long now, every time he steps out that door in the hood and leaves her and Tommy behind, and now that he’s saying the words it’s actually breaking her heart. The hood is what brought them together. The hood is now dispensable to him.

“I love you both so much,” he murmurs into the dimly lit room.

“I love you too,” she replies, moving her hand to stroke over his jaw. “But there are other ways. You don’t have to give it up. It’s important to you-”

“You’re more important,” he insists. “You…you, and Tommy, you’re…everything,” he breathes. “This is all I want for the rest of my days,” he decides. “I want us, our family, a bigger family, and I don’t want to relive my family’s biggest moments when I’m falling off a rooftop.”

She dips her head, bringing up her free hand to wipe at her own cheeks. “Okay,” she nods. “As long as this is what you want,” she checks. “Because you can’t regret this.” She wants to tell him that his injury might make the choice for him now anyway, but it’s not the time for that. “I don’t want you to regret making this choice.”

Do not regret choosing us, she means. Do not regret choosing Oliver Queen over the Arrow.

Oliver is silent as he leans down to place a firm kiss on his son’s head, smiling when Tommy shifts in his sleep and presses himself closer to his father with a deep breath of satisfaction when he finds the right spot. In his sleep, he mumbles about sharks and tigers and Oliver’s smile increases.

“This is what I want,” he says in a determined whisper.

She leans to him, this time planting her lips on his, and doesn’t give him a verbal answer. They’ve always followed where the other lead, and now is no different. This is just their next step. They’ll lay the Arrow to rest again, for good this time, and work on their next adventure. Oliver Queen. They’ll focus on picking Tommy’s school before the summer, on what they’re going to get him for the holidays. They’ll extend their family. They’ll fill their home with laughter and love and nothing like the loss they almost suffered tonight.

“But really though,” Felicity murmurs when their lips eventually separate. “Do not scare me like that again.” He doesn’t answer her, but his eyes are closing and he seems to be shifting into Tommy ever so slightly that she kisses his cheek. “Get some rest,” she whispers. “You’ll need some energy when he wakes up.”

–

When Felicity sees her son’s face when he wakes up and sees his precious Daddy already awake and smiling at him, she’s more than ready for him to give up the Arrow.

This is much better.


	13. Say Yes to the Dress

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Note: I’m sick and binge watching it. It was bound to happen.

_“We’re going live to downtown Starling City where our reporter Dan Matthews is about to give us an update on our big countdown of 2017. Dan, is today the day at last?”_

_“Good morning to you, Laura. After three near misses, today is finally the day. We’ve been counting down to the wedding of the year since the official announcement in the new year, but today Starling Brides has been shut down for the arrival of Felicity Smoak, soon to be Queen.”_

_“She’s been cutting it a bit close to the wedding date. With only four months to go, what measures are being taken to make sure that a dress can be found in time?”_

_“We’ve been hearing a lot of wedding plans in the gossip columns, as you know, but as always, there have been no confirmations from anyone in the family. The wedding is just as private as the bride and groom themselves, so we can be sure that there will be a lot of surprises when it comes to Starling City’s power couple.”_

_“Any rumours about the style of dress that the bride-to-be is looking for?”_

_“Felicity Smoak has become one of Starling City’s biggest fashion icons since she took over as CEO of Queen Incorporated, formally Palmer Technology. We do know that she’ll be joined today not just by her mother and close friends, but also her future sister-in-law, Thea Queen, who is notorious for her impeccable outfits at any event she attends. I think we can be confident that with a team like that, Felicity’s wedding gown will be a sight to be seen.”_

_“She certainly does catch the eye of everyone in the room. In fact, we’ve yet to see a single bad fashion choice by this woman. Is she really as perfect as she seems?”_

_“If you ask me, Laura, she’s more than perfect. Going back fifteen years ago, Oliver Queen was in the news with some colourful choices of women, but to see him with this woman at his side makes for an Oliver Queen that we can be proud of.”_

_“Speaking of the groom, what can we be expecting of him on this day? Arguably the most important part of the wedding planning process.”_

_“Oliver Queen has repeatedly told our reporters that all he wants for his wedding day is for his fiancee to be happy, and that no expense will be spared to make that happen. As for today, however, what looks like the male side of the bridal party appears to be congregating in a coffee shop at the end of the street, waiting for his future bride.”_

_“Let’s hope he can keep his hands off her long enough for her to shop!”_

_“If you’re referring to last week’s candid shot from the Starling Children’s Hospice gala, I have to agree with you!”_

_“There’s one thing we can be sure of, and that’s that this is a couple very much in love. Once again, we’ll be bringing you all the wedding gossip in the lead up to the big day. That’s all for now, Starling City.”_

—

“Oh, wow.”

“Wow.”

“Wow.”

The chorus of the same sentiment ran through the room, and there was Felicity, starstruck as she looked at her own reflection. She’d not been prepared for the sight of herself in a wedding dress, but with the white fabric covering her, she did feel that emotional reaction that everyone warned her about. The dress as a whole slimmed her out considerably, but the skirt flowed down around her waist with a shimmer to the material that glistened slightly whenever it caught the light. The bodice itself had more crystals on, adorning her in the sparkle that her mother insisted was essential.

“Wow,” she whispered to herself.

The longer she stayed in front of the mirror, the more it became apparent that she didn’t want to take it off. The consultant added a veil, and her mother burst into tears. Felicity looked over her shoulder at them, seeing a long line of women in tears. Lyla handed Donna a tissue, Thea just looked up at Felicity with tears on her cheeks as if this were something she dreamed of becoming one day. Then, she saw what they saw.

In the mirror behind her, she caught sight of her half-turned form. The dress flowed out perfectly behind her, the veil half over her curls and half over her shoulder. The sweetheart neckline only helped to accentuate her figure, and she was biting at her bright pink lips.

Dress number sixteen was definitely the winner.

“Felicity?”

The sound of Oliver’s voice had them all recoiling in horror and several women screamed at him to leave, but he wasn’t in sight. Felicity just laughed. Oliver had wandered into the bridal boutique with the other men and from the sight of it, had forced him to wait around the corner while the others all stuck their head around to see her.

Diggle’s eyebrows rose, his smile warm. “That better be the one.”

Felicity didn’t hide her grin, turning back to her reflection and tracing her hands over the extravagant fabric. “Yeah, this is the one,” she announced.

Diggle turned around to where Oliver was hidden gave him a stupid grin. “You lucky son-of-a-bitch.”

“Tell me about it,” Oliver breathed out a reply, craning his neck to see if he could see a reflection in one of the many mirrors in the store, but to everyone’s surprise, it was Barry Allen who smacked him around the head and gave him a warning look.

“Anyway,” Diggle changed the subject. “We’re just here to see if you guys would be done in time to join us for lunch.”

“No,” Felicity told them without looking away from the mirror. “I’m not ready to take this off yet.”

Thea laughed and looked at Digg. “We’ll meet you at Table Salt, we’ll be along soon.”

“But it’s so pretty,” Felicity argued.

“My beautiful girl,” Donna gushed.

Laurel was the one to pat Donna on the back, and grin at Felicity. “Why don’t you and Thea sort out the rest of things here, and I’ll get your mother a drink before she breaks out your baby pictures?” she suggested, guiding Donna up.

When they left, Thea approached Felicity before the mirror, taking hold of her hands. “I was surprised. I didn’t think you’d end up liking this one.”

“Neither did I,” Felicity agreed. “But I’ve never looked like this before,” she breathed. “I know Oliver tells me I’m beautiful a lot, but I actually…feel it for myself, you know?”

“I know,” Thea assured her, nudging her shoulder for a moment.

“So you like it?” Felicity checked one final time. “Do you think Oliver’s going to like it?”

“I know exactly what Oliver’s going to think,” she smiled.

“And what’s that?”

“That you look like a Queen.”


	14. Late for Dinner

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> sailorchibimoonunicorn said:   
> Baby Sara trying to feed Oliver her food but accidentally throws it at Felicity

The new lair has a time out corner.

Oliver isn’t sure what to think about this.

The bunker is amazing, even he can’t deny that. It’s everything they need it to be, and more than that, it feels like home. Felicity has her work area that is far more advanced than anything he had been able to give her before, and he has a separate workout area, there is more equipment, more space, and they all work together better when they’re not cramming into the same small spaces.

But it has a time out corner.

It was created for Sara’s benefit. Lyla has become more hands-on in their achievements since retiring from A.R.G.U.S field work, and with Diggle becoming another masked crusader, it meant Sara coming into the lair was something Oliver had to live with. He was fine with it overall, because it meant someone had to stay behind and take care of her, and he was entirely okay with that person being Felicity or Thea, because selfishly, he didn’t want either of them in the field.

Felicity always volunteered. She was better at use at the computers, and Sara liked to sit in her lap.

Tonight things were tense. Sara had been screaming for at least an hour when John tried to feed her, but she wasn’t keen on the idea. Thus, the time out corner in Felicity’s designated work area had become functional.

Oliver came into the bunker that evening to collect Felicity for date night - a new thing they were trying - an hour late. She was sat at her desk, dressed beautifully with hair and make-up done to perfection, and he was late. Too late.

“Felicity, I’m so sor–” he started, but she cut him off, pointing to the corner.

“Time out corner, Oliver.”

He blinked at her.

“Excuse me?”

“You’re late. You get a time out.”

He was dumbfounded for a moment, unable to react. “You can’t time out me.”

“I just did.”

She’s annoyed, he gets that, but he turned to where she was pointing and was met with the sight of a grumpy fifteen-month-old and he frowns. “Why is Sara in time out?” he asked.

“Because she’s refusing to eat her dinner,” she said, pointing at the plate next to her with Sara’s finely diced dinner on. “Get her to eat and you can both come out of time out, but in the meantime, because we are late for dinner I got roped into something else and I’m extremely busy, so just…time out corner.”

That tone is one that made him feel more guilty that he was used to, but lateless was an occupational hazard with him, so he gives her this anger. It was nothing that a hot bath and a bit of spoiling wouldn’t fix, but he also wouldn’t dare interfere with anything between her and a computer, so he took off his suit jacket, rolled his sleeves up, and took the plastic dinner plate over to the infant in her chair.

He was amused by these chairs, having never seen them before. It was carted around everywhere the Diggle’s went, and simply sat wherever they needed. Sara’s legs fit into the space at the front, and she could instantly sit upright, safely and not able to crawl away. Her face lit up when she saw her precious Uncle Lolly. She coudn’t speak right, but lolly was easy to say. Oliver was hard. Ollie was a struggle, but Thea had taught Sara that and lolly had come right after.

“Hey, Sara,” he said, sinking down cross legged next to her with the plate that she eyed suspiciously.

“‘Coll lolly,” she cooed, looking up at him in sheer wonder. Now that things between Diggle and Oliver were healing, Sara had a fond spot for Oliver that nothing could rival, and part of his Brand-New-Oliver was opening himself up to the fact that children weren’t terrifying, and that he wasn’t entirely opposed to them, and Sara had made him realise that he absolutely wanted to have an entire troop of them with Felicity as their mother.

“You gonna help us both out here?” he asked her, scooping up some of the potato and holding it out to her on the spoon. “If you eat, we can get out of time out,” he whispered to her conspiratorily.

“No,” she whined.

“Yes.”

“Nooo,” she repeated, leaning as far down in the chair as she could. “No, ‘tato.”

“Yes, ‘tato,” he repeated in exactly her tone.

“Lolly, no!” she cried loudly, reaching out to push at him but only serving in snapping his suspender when she pulled her hand away.

“Sara, yes.” He said, and she pouted at him. He hated that pout. It did things to him. He filed it away with Felicity’s pleading eyes. He held the plastic spoon out to her. “You want to do it? Be a big girl?”

She looked at him, sitting up a bit with a shuffle and held her hand out. She held the spoon in her chubby hand but didn’t hold it any closer to her. Oliver smiled encouragingly at her. “That’s it. Big bite. Show me you’re a big girl now.”

“No.”

“Yes.”

“No, ‘tato!”

Oliver gave her a serious look. “Sara, are you a big girl?” he asked her.

“Yes.”

“Then show me.”

She matched his glare for a long time, then lifted the spoon to her mouth. She took a big bite and held it there definitely.

“Now chew it,” he encouraged her.

She did.

“Swallow.”

She stuck her tongue at him after to prove she had done, and then picked up more potato. Oliver considered this a personal win before she was holding up the spoon to him. “Lolly eat.”

He did as he always did, leaning in to pretend to take a bit but she shoved the tiny spoon into his mouth before he could pull away. Presented with a mouthful of potato, all Oliver could do was awkwardly swallow it, because they were very late for dinner and he was starving. Sara giggled, and when he turned his head up he saw Felicity watching him with a raised eyebrow.

“She made me,” he insisted.

She said nothing and turned back to the computer.

Sara squealed in delight, and picked up another spoonful, delighted at feeding herself, and Oliver found after a few minutes that he was actually having fun in time out with Sara, so much so that he didn’t notice Felicity was done until she was sinking down next to him in her gorgeous blue dress and Sara was cooing at her.

“Nearly all done,” Felicity admired, giving Oliver a surprised look. “Nice work, Mr. Queen.”

“You sound surprised.”

“I am,” she smirked, as his free arm snaked around her shoulders.

“You shouldn’t be,” he pointed out. “I’ve completely got this Godfather job all figured out and—”

SPLAT.

There was a lump of mashed up potato clinging to Felicity’s eye.

Oliver groze.

Sara giggled wildly.

Oliver started planning his own funeral.

“You were saying about this godfather job?” she muttered at him disgruntledly, as the final part of her day became unplanned and disappointing.

“So, maybe I’ve nearly got it down,” he corrected, wiping it away with his thumb, wincing when he ruined some of her make-up with the action.

“We’re so screwed,” she mumbled with a higher pitch in her tone.

“Hey, now,” he pointed out softly. “She ate, she’s happy, she’s safe. John’s not gonna be mad if-”

“We’re screwed because we can’t even feed a kid without making a mess!” she argued. “I couldn’t her to eat earlier, so how are we supposed to take care of our own kid if we can’t even take care of Sara, and she’s not ours, I mean she’s wonderful but what if we failed this badly at getting her to eat dinner and then had to go home, bath her, put her to bed, be there when she woke up, I mean, how are we going to handle that, Oliver? We’re okay at all this babysitting stuff but,” she stopped, her eyes widening, and then she gasped. Her hand clapped to her mouth. “Oh god, what is wrong with me? This is a terrible way to tell you.”

“Tell me?” he asked, the her words sank in and he deflated. His shoulders relaxed, and he choked out a grin. “Felicity…”

“I wanted to tell you at dinner–”

“Felicity-”

“But then you were late, and we lost the table, and–”

“Felicity-”

“I had this really special thing planned and now we can’t-”

“Fe-li-ci-ty.”

She stopped, biting her own lip behind her hands, and he brought them down with his own, clasping them tightly.

“Are we…having a baby?” he asked her, hesitant but unable to fight back his grin.

–

An hour later, the team arrived back to find Oliver and Felicity still dressed to perfection, with a few adjustments. Originally they were going to drop Sara back to the Diggle’s babysitter on their way home, but they were still sat on the ground in the foundry, all three playing with Sara’s toys. Whatever game it was, it looked heavily animated and all three were making loud, delighted noises. Felicity was leaning back between Oliver’s legs, and he was leaning over her to reach the toys with one hand. His free hand dropped on Felicity’s flat stomach.

“Someone’s late for bedtime,” Thea teased in a sing-song tone.

Diggle took in their sheer happiness and shook his head. “I think I can make an exception.”


	15. Bad Timing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt from Anonymous: Felicity has to tell Oliver she is pregnant

Felicity toyed with the engagement ring far more often than she should have done, considering how delicate it was. Handmade by Oliver’s own hand. It turns out that between reserves of money spent on motels and gas, buying an engagement ring hadn’t been an expense he’d prepared for. He kept on promising to replace it with a proper ring when they got back to Starling City, but she’d told him plenty of times that she didn’t want one. The one he’d given her was far more precious to her because it was him. It was a tiny silver band with an emerald in that she still wasn’t sure how he’d gotten, and while it looked fragile, she was twisting it around her finger in nervousness.

Excitement?

Fear.

That was the one. Fear.

She felt sick as she waited for him to return from the store. She was surprised he’d even fallen for her bland lie that they needed shampoo. It was their final night in this motel - in any motel, for that matter. Tomorrow began the last leg of the drive back to Starling and by this time tomorrow they would be back in their own bed. Beds. Her apartment? Thea’s? Yeah, they really needed to figure that out.

They needed to figure a lot of things out.

Travelling for six months had been blissful. There was no other word for it. Without distractions and things to worry about, they thrived in their romance - and it was romantic. Oliver Queen didn’t disappoint in any area, and she could see why all those girls went so willingly to his bed in his youth. The difference was that none of it was an act for her. Sometimes even the act of him carefully shaving down his stubble was enough to make her melt inside. He was pure affection, and she’d lost count of how many times a day she called him a goofball.

He’d asked her to marry him three months in. It may have been cliche, but they’d driven out of Vegas at the perfect time, parked the car up and laid out on the hood as they watched the sun rise over the Grand Canyon. She hadn’t even seen it coming, but in hindsight, he had been talking a spectacular deal about how he knew he was going to spend the rest of his life loving her, and how she really should adjust any life plans to account for that.

That day they just drove, and they made their plan.

They were going to get married after a year long engagement. It had to be a year because there was no way Thea would let them get off with a small wedding, and she’d want to plan it. They owed her that much at least. It gave them time to focus on finding a place of their own to live and for Felicity to get settled into her new job. Plus, they theorised, it meant they’d have to do very little planning themselves, and Felicity couldn’t deny that she was very excited to hear about these fashion designer friends that might be interested in a dress for her. They’d honeymoon on a roadtrip. Why not? It seemed appropriate. They’d be a bit more prepared this time, maybe rent an upscale motorhome even though the mere idea of Oliver driving what he called a ‘glorified sex-on-wheels zone’ made her laugh so hard they’d had to pull over before she spilled the coffee she was holding.

They would enjoy the time together, enjoy the spoils of marriage in their own home for a few years and then think about having children. Felicity quite liked the idea of giving themselves a few years, because for all her I’m-an-independant-woman moments, the idea of sending her husband out for cravings snacks and hospital bracelets with “Baby Queen” on was a little bit precious. In the spirit of being open and not holding things back, she told him that it was important to her that her family unit held the same surname. She didn’t have her father’s surname because her parents were never married and her mother was all about girls sticking together, and a part of her was a little bothered by that.

They planned everything, down to the circumstances in which Oliver was to step down from the Hood if he ever felt the need to pick it back up again. In the end, it was a perfect plan, and they had written up the important plans on the back of a hotel menu at their next stop.

But now, at the final stop, the plan had all gone to hell.

When Oliver finally returned from the shop, Felicity was pacing the small room. Despite their frugal intentions for the trip, they really were running out of money and didn’t want to waste too much on the last hurdle of their journey. She was biting down on her fingernail, chewing it far shorter than it should be and barely noticing the flecks of blue nail polish that it left in the corner of her lips.

“So, I have a surprise for you,” Oliver announced as he came back into the room, moving around with a series of grocery bags with a satisfied little grin on his face. “I figured we should celebrate our last night in some way, and not just with sex - although there will be a lot of sex,” he said, his eyes flickering up briefly with a knowing smile and back to the stuff he took out of the bag. “So I have some sparkling wine, something covered in chocolate and you are not okay right now…” he looked up again, going back to what he’d seen when his eyes flickered up, fixing her with a concerned look as he put the items down on the side of the bed. “Felicity…”

“I’m okay,” she told him, though her words were mumbled around the thumbnail she was biting down on.

“You don’t look okay,” he said, his eyes searching hers as he placed his hands on her upper arms. “What is it? Did someone call, has something happened?”

“No,” she shook her head. “Well, yes. I mean, no.” She screwed up her face a little to start again. “No, nobody called, but yes, something happened. Not right now, but it has happened, and now we know about it. Well, I know about it, you don’t, but that’s the point of…this.” She gestured at her panicking form and tried to break away from him to pace more, because it was oddly helping her.

“Fe-li-ci-ty,” he said softly, drawing her back to stand in front of him and tugging her thumb from her lips. “Talk to me.”

“I am.”

“About what’s wrong,” he added. “As much as I love your babbling-”

“-Yeah, I really don’t know why you do-”

“-it’s helping you hide something,” he finished. His hands stroked over her upper arms, those blue eyes pulling at her and seriously, how did she even think straight when he was looking at her like that?

Oh, that’s right? She didn’t.

“Felicity,” he prompted her again.

“How important is our plan?” she asked hesitantly, biting on her lip now that her thumb was out of reach.

“What do you mean?” he asked her, his frown increasing. “It’s pretty important that I spend the rest of my life with you, Felicity Smoak,” he reminded her, stepping just a little bit closer as if were afraid she were about to bolt. “In fact, that’s the most important thing in the world.”

And didn’t that just twist her stomach up in knots?

“But the order of it,” she said, and then she did break away from him. She went over to the shared suitcase on the floor that housed the clothes they hadn’t bothered unpacking, unzipping the top pocket to take out the menu they’d written on. “It’s a pretty specific order, I mean, we’ve got the engagement, then the job, the house, the wedding, the honeymoon, the kids, and it’s all very specific in a very specific order,” she rambled, handing it to him and pointing out each of the points as she spoke.

Oliver followed her finger over the points, then looked up at her. “Is this…not something you want any more?” he asked her, his voice more hesitant than she’d ever heard it, and she realised for a moment how she was making it sound.

“No! I mean, yes! God, yes, this what I want, you are what I want,” she rushed out quickly. “Just…this was our plan, and I’m pretty sure I’ve ruined it.”

Her hands flew up to her mouth and she could feel her eyes welling up as she looked at him. The concern on her face was just heartbreaking. She was about to ruin all their plans, and how was this a happy moment for people? “Ruined it?” he asked her, letting the menu drop to the floor.

“Remember that ear infection I got in Coast City?” she asked him, not lowering her hands. “I got the antibiotics from that really nice doctor that was sweet enough to call my doctor back in Starling so that it was okay, and we agreed that was a totally good thing because earaches are a massive pain in the ass?”

“I remember,” he said, though he wasn’t sure where this was leading.

“Antibiotics can apparently screw with other medication you’re taking,” she told him.

His brow narrowed again, this time in confusion instead of concern. “But you’re not on any medica—,” he stops in his tracks, and she sees the moment it hits him when he runs his hand over his face. “You’re on the pill.”

“Yup,” she confirmed, her lips snapping on the ‘p’.

It was his turn to pace a little before his arms found hers again, and he was looking into her eyes more intensely than he ever had before. “Are you…?”

“Late? Yes.”

“Did you take a…?”

“Three of them. Ten minutes ago.”

“And?”

She swallowed thickly, ready to shatter their plans into oblivion. “And I’m pregnant,” she confirmed.

She waited for him to step back, for him to run a mile. He didn’t.

He released a long breath to disbelief, but it was laced with a smile that was unlike anything she’d ever seen before. He was smiling. Her stomach was churning but he was smiling at her like she’d handed him the world. In a way, she supposed that she had. Very slowly, his arms leave hers and they wave around her shoulders, crossing midway before his large palms settle over her shoulder blades. She falls into him instantly, burying her face into his shoulder as she grips at his shirt. While her eyes were screwed shut, she could still feel his smile, imprinting onto her forehead where he held her against him.

“Is it totally bad timing?” she asked hesitantly, her voice breaking slightly.

“Are you kidding me?” he asked, his words still more like breath than anything else. “We’re going to have a baby?”

He held her just a little tighter as he spoke, and she nodded into his shoulder. It felt more real coming from his lips than the white plastic stick in the bathroom. “We’re going to have a baby,” she whispered, and she was smiling into his shoulder when he said it a second time, a third time, and a fourth.

Then he was laughing, full bodied elated laughter that had them both wiping tears off their cheeks when they eventually found breath again.

“But the plan?” she asked him.

He pressed his lips to her forehead, then down onto her own rosy lips. When he pulled back, she almost told him about the splinter of blue nail polish that had transferred to his lower lip, but figured it wasn’t really the moment. “Screw the plan,” he said, grinning like a fool. “It’s all about the endgame, anyway.”


	16. I Read It In A Book

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anonymous: I imagine heavily pregnant Felicity kidnapped. She goes into labour because of the stress, and when Oliver and Dig rescue her it’s time to push and poof, little Ava. There, on site. I wanted to feed you a prompt, just in case. No one’s ever written this trope. And you are great with emotions.
> 
> Me: What do you mean no one’s ever written this? No one? Ever? Lemme get all over this. I’m gonna be on it like a car bonnet. I’m gonna be in there like swimwear. I’m gonna do it like a dude.

Three days overdue, and her stomach finally twinged at the most inopportune moment.

Tugging at the cable ties around her wrists, Felicity bent forward over her bulging stomach, taking slow, deep breaths as her stomach tightened and a crippling pain shot through her body. She tried to tell herself it was the stress - after all, no one ever likes being kidnapped and she really disliked it - and just braxton hicks, a warning of _hey mom, maybe I’ll start coming out a super convenient time like saturday morning after you’ve shaved your legs and people in the hospital get an up-close and personal look at your lady garden_ , but no.

No.

Her son may have started early with the Oliver Queen School of Timekeeping but he certainly wasn’t planning on taking a course in Basic Organisation by Felicity Smoak.

Because just when she convinced herself that she wasn’t going to go into labour in the middle of a dirty abandoned barn in the middle of nowhere, her water broke.

“Oh god,” she whispered. “Oh god, please not now, not now.”

“Hey, keep it down over there!”

A gun cocked, and she shut her eyes tightly, trying to calm her heart rate down. Did she tell them? How could she? Hey, I know you’re totally angry at the Arrow, but could you just drop me off at the hospital so I could have his kid for twelve hours or so? Maybe in the meantime you could move me out of the puddle I’ve just made because this dress was really pretty before you made me sit in the mud?

No, Oliver was coming for her. She knew that. There was a tracking device embedded in her engagement ring, she was fairly certain that her wedding ring was just as easily traced, and her kidnappers hadn’t taken either of them away. Oliver was coming. Oliver was coming.

For two hours, she hid it. She took her breath has her contractions overtook her, but she definitely wasn’t comfortable and she’d planned for pain relief, all of the pain relief because she really, really didn’t like any kind of pain at all and this hurt a lot more than anyone had told her it would.

They weren’t slow, either. Her contractions were less than ten minutes apart and she knew that was hospital time. She wasn’t going to make it. She wasn’t going to make it to a hospital and she was going to give birth in the middle of a hostage situation and she was going to be that crazy lady on the news who gave birth in the dirt and now her kid is feral and it all goes back to the traumatic birth and this really, really, freaking _hurts._

She cried then. They shouted at her, brandished weapons at her, but she couldn’t do anything but cry. She was frightened. She was in labour. She was restrained and couldn’t even use her arms to shield her stomach from them.

Then came the pressure.

The urge to push.

The pure, bone-chilling fear.

And Oliver. At last, Oliver.

She could hear him calling her, but there were other hands behind her, undoing her arms until she was free and her hands flew to her stomach. The hands that cupped her face to check for injury were warm but they weren’t her husband’s, and she opened her eyes to look up at Digg.

“Digg, it’s-”

“Are you hurt?”

“I think the baby’s coming,” she told him instead, because that was the most important thing and really, who cared about a twisted ankle when there was actual human life arriving imminently?

“Felicity,” more hands, more touching, a kiss, then another sharp pain through her stomach that drew her away from Oliver. She gripped her hands into his forearms, her fingernails leaving crescent marks against his skin. “Okay, it’s alright, just breathe like we practiced and…”

“No, we need to _go_!” she insisted through sharp pants. “I need to push. We need to go a hospital, now.”

“Felicity, we can’t,” he told her gently.

“No, we _have_ to!” she sobbed at him desperately. “We’re running out of time.”

“Felicity, look at me,” Oliver said calmly, his voice still firm as he cupped her cheeks. “ _Look at me_ , take a breath,” she did as much as she could. “There’s an ambulance on it’s way, but if you need to push already it might not get here in time-”

“No,” she protested. “Oliver-”

“-but it’s going to be okay,” he assured her. “It’s going to be fine. We’re going to do this together, okay? We’re going to move you somewhere more comfortable and we’re going to do what we need to do, and I’m not going to leave you, do you understand?”

She drew in a shuddering breath that broke his heart. “I’m scared, Oliver.”

“I’m scared too,” he murmured, pressing his lips to her forehead while he tucked his arms beneath her and waited until her next contraction passed. “Digg, get the bag out the back of the car, there’s a medical kit in there and a few changes of clothes, we’re going to need them.”

Diggle disappears briefly, and Oliver takes advantage of the momentary stillness to move Felicity over to an area of the barn that isn’t doused in mud and a ton of germs they don’t want to be near. He set her down where she could lean back against some bundled up straw and placed his hand on her knee. “Hey,” he directed her attention back at him, keeping her eyes on his as he slipped off her underwear beneath her dress. “Everything’s going to be okay, I promise,” he reassured her.

“You don’t know that,” she shook her head. “This is supposed to happen in a hospital, and— _ahhh_!” she cut off with a cry, and her hips shifted.

“Breathe,” he repeated, his hand gripping hers as the other ran up and down her thigh while she breathed through it. He then looked down between her legs and let out a strangled sigh. “Felicity…he’s…he’s got _hair_. A lot of hair. I can see it,” he said in amazement, dropping all sense of calm and control for that side of him that was excited to be a father.

She dropped her head back when she finally felt the contraction end, but now that she was crowning the pain was constant and she was so afraid to move. Diggle returned, and with the two men shuffling around her, there was something cold and clean beneath her, and Oliver wasn’t wearing his Arrow attire anymore but a pair of jeans and a plain t-shirt. He remained at her knees, gripping one of her hands while Diggle was the one who sat next to her head, taking hold of her other hand and placing something cold and wet against her head.

“Come on, girl, you’ve got this,” he told her with an assuring smile.

“That’s really sweet, Digg, but you have no idea how much this hurts,” she said with a screwed up face. The pressure was building again and she gripped Oliver’s hand with more force than before. “I don’t want to do this here.”

“We don’t have a choice, sweetheart,” Oliver told her. “Now we’re going to do this together, but you need to be as calm as possible, okay?”

“How do you know how to do this?” she asked him with a heavy gasp.

“I read it in the book.”

Her head snapped up, her eyes wide. “ _You read it in a book_???” she shouted.

“It had a chapter on what to do in an emergency,” he told her calmly. “And this is an emergency.”

Yes, it was an emergency.

She was going to have her baby in a freaking _barn_.

“So on the next contraction, try pushing,” Oliver coached her.

So she did. She pushed because she couldn’t not push. This baby wanted out of her body and he didn’t care how much pain he caused on his way out. How did parents have more than one baby? What kind of amnesia hit after labour? Because there was no way in hell she was doing this even if she had the most adorable baby in the world and oh god, that was even more painful, what was that? Is that the head? Is that…what is that? Holy mother of god, what is that? Get it out, get it out, _get it out_ —

A rush of relief soared through her, her whole body relieving of pressure with an odd sense of emptiness she hasn’t felt in months, and the pain has dulled. She dropped her head back with a vague sense of Digg praising her and then there was a weight on her chest and she lifts her head to see him.

Her son.

He was dried already, wrapped in one of Oliver’s spare hoodies from the bag, and she felt the breath leave her body, replaced with something warmer, a pull of love she’d never felt so strongly and instantly before, and her arms are coming up over Oliver’s hands as Diggle moves away and the two of them are frozen in one moment of cradling this tiny boy together as Oliver rubs his back firmly and he releases his first cry.

 _This is it_ , she realised. This is what it’s like to fall in love all at once.

“Hi, baby,” she murmured when no other words came, because her baby is in her arms and she isn’t scared anymore.

“Oh, my beautiful boy,” Oliver breathes, touching the fuzz on his head and it was insane how much hair he had already, already darker like Oliver’s and her natural colour. He leaned up to kiss Felicity’s forehead. “I love you. You did so good, I’m so proud of you.”

“Stop it,” she told him, wiping away the tears on her cheeks. “You delivered a freaking baby, I just sat here.”

“Our freaking baby,” he sighed in wonder, and then they both burst into quiet laughter as their son cried between them.

Diggle interrupted them with a soft tone as he smiled. “Medics are here, you two,” he told them, placing his hand on Oliver’s shoulder. “You both did good tonight,” he praised them. “And he’s a gorgeous boy,” he added with a proud smile.

Oliver just grinned, meeting Felicity’s eyes as their newborn son fell to silence in his mother’s arms, and pressed his forehead to hers, his lips finding the end of her nose as a tear hit his cheek. “Come on, Mommy,” he whispers to her. “I’m never letting you out of my sight again.”


	17. You Can't Do This

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anonymous said:
> 
> Olicity prompt: Felicity’s self harm. Please write this I think it would be a challenge but seeing how Oliver would deal with it I think could be beautiful:)
> 
> TRIGGER WARNINGS - SELF HARM

He first sees it in the car. She’s driving, for once. Usually he drives and she takes control of the map, but today she’s driving, and it’s beautiful. Her hair skims over her shoulders in the breeze, there are few other cars on the coastal road, and every part of her radiates happiness. Her shirt is loose fabric with plunging gaps beneath her arms that reveal the bikini she’s wearing beneath it. He’s just admiring the contrast of royal blue against her creamy skin when he sees it.

The thin red line of a still-healing wound.

“What’s that?” he asked, reaching out and brushing a finger against it.

She flinches away from him. “Stop it, that tickles!”

He doesn’t ask her again.

–

Except he does. Later that day.

–

“Were you hurt?” he asks her when they arrive at the motel. Really what he wants is an up-close look at the wound, to check that it is as superficial as it appeared at a quick glance, but he isn’t sure it’s the right time to get that. They made a pact that despite their road trip, they weren’t going to rush into a summer of what would no doubt be gloriously distracting sex. They need to learn who they are without the vigilante life dictating their actions.

“When?” she asks him, still looking in the bathroom mirror as she towel-dries her hair. One thing he likes about motels is that despite their lack of luxury, the closeness it allows them is second-nature now.

“Before we left,” he says.

“Oliver, if I was hurt, don’t you think you would have known about it?” she points out.

He can’t deny that.

“You’ve got a cut on your ribs. I saw it earlier.”

She freezes, her eyes firmly on her own reflection. He rises from where he was lying on the bed, entirely un-distracted by the news channel playing in the background, and goes to stand in the bathroom doorway, placing a hand on each side of the frame to avoid invading her personal space.

“Felicity.”

“It’s nothing.”

“Tell me,” he says firmly, in a tone he hasn’t taken with her in a long time.

“I don’t have to, because it’s nothing.”

“ **Felicity** -”

“Oliver, will you just-”

“-Show me.”

“- _Drop it_!” she shouts, and when she turns to him she’s horrified at how she sounds, covering her hands with her mouth.

He remains still, not flinching at her outburst but he does step forward. He places his hands over her wrist and draws them down. Her eyes are watering when he reaches her. “Please, talk to me,” he says quietly. “We said no more lies, no more hiding anything, that means you as well.”

“You don’t want to see it,” she says simply.

“You need to trust me,” he whispers.

She removes her shirt hesitantly, slowly pulling the tank top over her head. She isn’t wearing a bra underneath it, and this is the most he’s seen of her since that night in Nanda Parbat, but this is different. She turns sideways and raises her arm, cupping her breast to hold it towards the centre of her body and reveal all of her side to him.

Oliver stares as his mouth goes dry. In the glaring lights of the motel bathroom, he can see the criss-cross scars across her ribcage, razor-thin and delicately placed. He falls down against the toilet, sitting on the closed lid as his hands come to her hips, drawing her to him so he can see this up close for himself. They are all superficial, and the majority of them are so completely healed and the scars are so faded it was no wonder he didn’t see them in the flickering lights of Ra’s fortress. But the one he had spotted earlier is fresh, the skin around it still raised as it heals and he gasps in a breath as if it can’t fill him quick enough.

“When?” he asks in a barely audible tone.

“I was a teenager,” she tells him. “Thirteen when I started. Dad was gone. Mom worked all the time. Life wasn’t…great. I was bullied a lot for being ahead in my classes. One was after Cooper died. The last one. I got help.”

“But this…” he coasts his fingertip over the most recent mark, feeling her skin flinch under his touch.

“You were gone,” she explained quietly.

He swallowed thickly, resting his forehead against her skin and how could he have done this to her? He had left her behind, pulled her so close and pushed her as he could far away immediately after. His actions have taken her back to the most confusing and painful time in her life and he may as well have inflicted this mark with his own hands.

“Felicity…” he chokes out.

“It doesn’t matter,” she whispers.

“You can’t do this again,” he tells her, and when he looks up at her there are tears in his eyes.

“I didn’t mean to-”

“Please,” he says in a half-sob. “You can’t hurt yourself.”

“It’s not that easy to do,” she explains.

“I didn’t say that it was,” he tells her with a deep breath. “But this…can’t happen again.”

“I don’t want it to,” she agrees, and he turns her, burying his face into her stomach. Now he can feel it, the scars beneath his fingertips, and it brings more tears to his eyes. His next breath shudders.

“I’m sorry,” he gasped against her, one of her hands stroking through his hair. “I’m so sorry.”

“I never wanted you to know,” she says as her head comes to rest atop his. “I never wanted…”

“I don’t care about scars, Felicity,” he shakes his head against her. “I just…to know you hurt yourself…”

“It doesn’t feel like hurting yourself though, does it?” she whispers. “You know that. Every time you go after someone you know you can’t beat. It’s…feeling something when you can’t feel anything. You never see it as hurting yourself. It’s…”

“…release,” he finishes for her, and she nods. He pulls her down against him, her legs wrapping against his waist and he buries his face into her shoulder. Now, their pounding hearts are in unison. “We can’t do this any more,” he speaks softly in a way that has her tensing before he continues. “This…not talking about the things that matter…dealing with things like we do. We can’t do that. We have to…I don’t know,” he sighs against her. “I don’t know, but we can’t deal with things this way. We have to find a healthier way, both of us.”

“You know that means no running off and getting beat up in the night,” she says quietly.

“I am not that person any more,” he reminds her. He lifts his head, trailing kisses over her cheek. “I am just your Oliver now. That’s who I want to be. I want to be a person who is…worthy of you. We need to do this together.”

“I don’t know how,” she confesses.

“We’ll figure it out,” he decides, just holding in absence of an actual plan.

Her shirt doesn’t go back on, but her pyjama pants stay on. They’re cartoon squirrels. He carries her to the bed with her half-damp hair and lays with her in his arms, curling his body around hers so he can feel her alive, feel heart beating while his thumb keeps a constant stroke over her healing cut. At one point she shifts, and he pulls her straight back against him. He needs to feel her in his arms. She doesn’t fight him, enclosed in the arms that welcomed her, and holds him just as tightly as he holds her.

When she’s woken two hours later with his lips against her throat, they start working on trusting each other a little more.


	18. Mother Knows Best

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anonymous said:
> 
> can you write a fic where donna surprises felicity again (maybe she forgot to send her the text she was coming like in 305?) and oliver answers the door in nothing but a towel and then felicity comes out moments later in nothing but a towel or a robe ?

Felicity doesn’t exactly want to leave the bathroom, but she can hear Oliver talking to someone can getting quite flustered over it, and there is definitely another voice that’s horrifyingly familiar, so she leaves behind the delicious steam and all hopes of getting her fourth orgasm of the morning against the shower wall, and goes to save her vigilante from whichever neighbour has cornered him.

“Oliver, who is—MOM??!?!?”

“My baby!” Donna squeals, launching herself across the living room with such little attention paid to the fact that Felicity was only wearing a towel around her. “Are you excited to see me? I wanted to surprise you!”

“Surprised is a word,” she says in disbelief, meeting Oliver’s I-had-nothing-to-do-with-this eyes over her mother’s shoulder. “Wh-what are you doing here?”

“I just told you, silly,” Donna says, standing back. “I had a weekend off, I thought I’d come spend it with my favourite daughter in the whole world.”

Felicity gives her a blank expression. “I’m your only child. You have one daughter.”

“Exactly, so you’re my favourite,” she beams back, putting her arm around Felicity’s shoulders. “And look who was so generous to let me in and goodness me, doesn’t he look wonderful in just a towel? Don’t worry, I apologised for interrupting his shower, I’m sure he has to get to work, it is a Friday, I hope you can take the day off though, because we need some serious mother-daughter catch up and…honey, why are you wearing just a towel?”

“I was showering,” Felicity says bluntly when her mother finally finishes babbling.

“But Oliver was showering,” she says.

One second passes.

Two.

Three seconds.

“Felicity Meghan Smoak!”

Oliver cringes in advance and whispers ‘sorry’ to Felicity across the room. He goes to rush past her but she grabs his wrist with an almost inhuman strength and glares at him. “If you leave me to deal with this alone you’ll be digitally ruined within the hour,” she threatens in a low whisper.

Donna, however, is still gaping at the pair, then her face plasters with the widest grin. “My baby girl’s getting shower sex!”

Felicity flushes bright red. “Mom, please!”

Her face quickly turns shocked, and she points a finger at her daughter with a firm expression. “You are being careful, right? Shower sex is the same as regular sex.”

“Mom-”

“Felicity Smoak, I raised you to be sensible about your sex life.”

“Can we please not talk about this right now?”

At Felicity’s denial, she turns her interrogation to Oliver. “Do we need to have a talk?” she asks in an oddly terrifying tone.

“….no,” he said quietly.

“…then you are being careful?” she asks him.

“….no,” he confessed like a misbehaving child.

Before they know it, Donna has them both sat on the couch, dripping from their towels as she looks down at them both. To say it’s uncomfortable is an understatement. “Young lady, I am disappointed at you,” she scolded. “Did we not have enough talks about sex when you were younger?”

“Too many, actually,” Felicity grumbled in embarrassment, unable to meet Oliver’s eyes.

“Now is not time to sass your mother,” she warned. “Condoms are important.”

“Donna-”

“Are you at least on the pill?” she asks her daughter.

“No.”

“Are you on any contraception?”

“No.”

“Do you know many types of disease you’re at risk of catching?”

Oliver looks up with a confused scowl. “I’m not…diseased.”

Donna looks at him nonchalantly. “No offence, sweetie.”

“…yes, offence,” he says quietly, but keeps his voice low before she can rant again.

“Mom, we’re in a committed relationship and are both entirely disease free,” Felicity assures her. “There’s nothing at all about that part of my life that you need to worry about.”

“Of course there is!” Donna cries, flailing her arms in the air and Oliver can see where Felicity gets it now, he really can. “What about pregnancy? Have you thought about that?”

“Yes,” Felicity says bluntly.

“Sure, you’ve thought about it, but do you know what it means? Because let me tell you, that’s goodbye career, goodbye slim body, goodbye coffee. Do you even know how to run without coffee, because you drink an awful lot of it?”

“Mom,” Felicity shouts to cut her off, drawing Donna’s attention back to her as she looked at Oliver with a deep breath. “We ….have thought about pregnancy,” she says slowly.

“And you’re completely prepared for an accident like that?” Donna asks.

“It’s not going to be an accident,” Oliver picks up, placing his hand over Felicity’s. “It’s…intentional.”

Donna goes silent for a long time.

A frighteningly long time.

Felicity has never known her mother to be so quiet.

Then she bursts into tears.

“Mom?” Felicity asks.

“My baby’s going to have a baby!” she wails in what Felicity thinks might be delight, leaning over and engulfing them both into a crushing hug.

“Well not…not yet,” Felicity says in a strangled voice from her tight hold.

“So you’re not…?” Donna asks, leaning back.

Felicity flushes so red she can hardly answer, so Oliver does it for her. “We actually took the weekend off to get a head start on…trying,” he explains as delicately as possible, although he isn’t sure that Donna would be so disturbed to hear ‘we cancelled everything this weekend to have a lot of unprotected sex everywhere in our apartment’.

“Oh!” she gasps, straightening quickly. “Well, you better get back in there!” she announced with encouragement. “I will go find a hotel for the weekend, I don’t want to be disturbing any baby making,” she is almost giddy at the idea.

“Mom, you don’t have to-”

“Oh, no, don’t let me interrupt,” she says, waving her hand at them as she rushes to the door. “I want beautiful grandbabies, so go make a lot of them okay,” and she turns to Oliver at the final moment, giving him a pointed expression. “You know, Oliver, it’s a proven fact that women conceive better if they have an orgasm,” she tells him.

“MOM!” Felicity wails in embarrassment.

Oliver just laughs. “Not a problem, Donna,” he insists, before wincing when Felicity smacks his shoulder.


	19. Real

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anonymous said:
> 
> Could you write about the first time Felicity tells Oliver about her father? And her opening up to him and learning about her past and how she feels about her father breaks his heart because it left a deep seeded abandonment issue in Felicity that’s still there.

It wasn’t that late when Felicity found herself back at her apartment, but she hadn’t exactly been out for long in the first place. A quick glance at the watch on her wrist as she’d opened the door told her it was only ten minutes past nine, but she still felt exhausted. Though the current mission was draining and imposing on all their sleep patterns, Felicity now had a different level of personal hatred for this particular case. It was far too personal, far too ingrained on a part of her life that she didn’t really like to tell people about, especially the people closest to her.

They’d been dealing with Damien Darhk for so long she didn’t remember what it was like to not have his name clouding over their evening activities, and everything had narrowed down to this one night where they were finally going to confront the man himself. Everything had been planned. They had finally gotten a step ahead of the man who was always twelve steps ahead of them, and found where he was going to be. Everything was in place.

Even him.

Damien Darhk.

Her father.

She’d never looked into him after he left, not even when she was old enough. She didn’t want to know. What if he had another family? What if he’d chosen other people to love? She didn’t want the doubts that her mother and herself weren’t good enough for him, so she never looked. She chose to believe that he simply didn’t want to be a part of any family.

He may have picked up another surname over the years, but Smoak was one he used fraudulently for a small period when he was running from Ra’s. There he’d settled. He’d met a woman named Donna. He’d had a daughter named Felicity.

She’d been monitoring the communications, ready to pull the plug on everything the second there was any danger, and then Oliver had been there, his bow had been raised and…it was him.

And he’d told them everything.

Everything.

She had slammed the door behind her when she came into the apartment, she heard Thea, who had obviously followed her home, call out for her. Her voice gave away what she’d feared as she announced she was leaving the second John had arrived back at their new lair location first. They knew who he really was; or rather, who he’d pretended to be. She couldn’t face them. Any of them. She’d apologise to Thea for all but slamming the door in her face another time. Right now she needed…she wasn’t sure what she needed.

She took off the coat she’d buttoned incorrectly on her way to her car, throwing it across the room where it landed on the coffee table and knocked over the mugs left there from breakfast that morning. The stress was reaching breaking point and lump began burning in her throat, tears leaking from her eyes and ruining the make-up she’d painted on her face earlier that day. A thick sob escaped her and a questioning tone close by reminded her that she hadn’t even taken out her comms unit.

She shut it off, tossing it across the room where it rolled underneath the couch. Her teardrop earrings were next, leaving them in the bowl where their keys usually pulled together. She lost the hairband holding back her ponytail somewhere in the hall. The butterfly clips holding the wispier strands of hair were removed until it was hanging around her shoulders in a furious mess from being confined all day. It wasn’t enough. The clothes had to go too. The fabric felt like it was eating her skin, surrounding her like Darhk’s words had done.

“You had a family.”

“I had a distraction. A liability.”

Her purple dress was opened after she firmly ripped the zipper down. She stood for a moment with the fabric pooled around her feet in the entrance to the bedroom, finally feeling free, but the voice was still echoing in her mind. His voice. She kicked the dress away, pulling on an oversized shirt that definitely didn’t belong to her over her head, collapsing onto the edge of the bead with her head in her hands.

Felicity wasn’t sure how much time had passed before the tears stopped falling and the sobs stopped muffling into her palm, but the angry trembling did begin to ease eventually. She heard a soft knocking at the door in the hall, but she didn’t move to answer it. Whoever was there wanted to ask her questions or talk about what happened and she didn’t want to do either. She waited in silence until everything went still, then bowed her head once again.

A few minutes later there was the sound of a key in a lock, and she didn’t move. Only limited people had a key to the door, so she waited for whoever was entering to make themselves known. Her tear stained cheeks would have been so obvious, so she didn’t move to wipe them. Oliver knew her better than that, anyway. He was silent, closing the door behind him and moving straight for the bedroom where she was. He made himself known by kneeling on the ground before her, his hands closing over her knees before they slipped up and took her hands, drawing them away from her face and placing a kiss into each palm.

“Felicity…”

“Don’t,” she said through a choked sob. “Please.”

“Okay,” he nodded softly.

She met his eyes, but he was still and silent as he watched her. His face showed no sign of sympathy, of pity, or anything, actually. He was a blank slate, ready for whatever was she needed from him. Her head bowed, forehead pressing to his and he released her hands to slide his around her, one stroking into her hair as the other started a path up her upper arm.

“He left me,” she said after a long silence. He waited for what came next, though there was no flinch in his touch. “How is that life more appealing than….I was a kid and he just…decided that was better? Better than my mom? Better than…me?”

“He made a bad choice,” Oliver said softly. “He was a bad person. You deserved better from your father.”

Acknowledging that he was her father made her feel sick.

“You should be out there,” she reasoned weakly, pulling back to wipe at her face. “Did you catch him? Is he–?”

“Everything is taken care of,” he assured her, remaining where he was.

“Not everything, surely, don’t you need to-”

“The only thing I need to worry about right now is you,” he told her with a gentle tone. “John is taking care of everything. The most important thing for me to do right now is to make sure my girl is okay.”

“I’m fine,” she told him, despite the fact that her hands were trembling again and there were still tears on her cheeks. “Considering the first seven years of my life ended up being nothing more than supervillains vacation layover.”

There was a momentary silence where Oliver said nothing, until he took her hands again. “None of what happened was your fault,” he assured her.

She took a moment to compose herself but failed. She did hold some sense of blame despite knowing it was a foolish idea - that maybe if she’d been better behaved, if she’d been a prettier child, if she hadn’t asked for such expensive toys, if she hadn’t asked so many questions, if she hadn’t talked so much - maybe he’d have stayed.

“If I was good enough, maybe he wouldn’t have left,” she whispered. “Then he wouldn’t have…”

“Felicity,” he brought his hands up to her face, cupping her cheeks as he directed her gaze back at him. “Don’t.”

“But-”

“No,” he said firmly. “You are not going to torture yourself over whether or not you were good enough for that monster,” he insisted. “He doesn’t know what good is. He doesn’t know how to appreciate it. And you are far more good to this world than anything a man like him can ever dream to be a part of.”

She took a deep, shuddering breath and moved back into him. He planted a chaste kiss on her forehead, letting it linger there while she closed her eyes and bit on her lip nervously. She was too exhausted, physically and mentally, to pretend that this hadn’t broken her heart.

“You only have to be good enough for one person, Felicity,” Oliver reminded her.

“You?”

“You,” he correct her, smoothing her wild hair as much as he could. “I think you’re amazing, beautiful, perfect…but I need you to believe that as well, okay?” he said quietly. There was no doubt in his tone, certainly none in his adoration of her.

She continued to draw slow breaths until her body felt calmer, though she suspected he had far too much to do with that. “He had to love me once,” she argued against herself, her voice now a pained whisper. “He wasn’t this person, I swear it. I remember parts of him being good, Oliver. He…he used to read to me, every night. Mom used to work late and he would put me to bed and he’d braid my hair and he’d read to me every single night until I fell asleep. He used to pick me up from school. He taught me how to love what I love and how can it be possible to be that kind of person to someone if you don’t love them?” She was rambling now, her eyes clinging to his. “How can someone who used to make me feel so safe find it so easy to leave me behind? He just…left. Ra’s told me that he left to keep his family safe once, that he didn’t have a choice, but that didn’t happen. He just left me.”

At that, she finally let her tears overwhelm her, unable to hold back the sobs she’d held back since Oliver came home. He pulled her back down to him again, this time she didn’t pull away, making things far easier for him to stroke her back as she cried. She wasn’t sure how long it was before she lifted her head from his shoulder, placing her hands against him to steady herself and her forehead against his. “You shouldn’t be sat like that,” she mumbled distantly, her eyes switching to concern. “Your knee…”

“My knee can take it,” he insisted.

“That’s not what your doctor said.”

His knee had never truly recovered from the devastating damage to it over a year ago. Kneeling in one position for more than a few minutes usually made it ache, and sometimes the muscles seized up more than he could pretend he was able to handle. “I’m fine, Felicity,” he whispered.

“You told Malcolm last week you wouldn’t kneel in front of him or anyone else,” she remembered.

Oliver’s face broke into a gentle smile, and one of his hands raised to wipe the remaining tears from her cheeks. “I actually told him I only plan on kneeling one more time in my life, and it wasn’t for him,” he reminded her with a heavy meaning to his words. “So don’t tell him I’ve added another exception to that, okay?”

“Okay,” she mumbled, before he kissed her cheek.

“Because next time I kneel down like this in front of you, you know what that will mean,” he added.

“You’re going to help me reach the top shelf?” she asked, sniffling as she composed herself by replying with the tease he usually added to the end of that declaration.

“No, I’m going to ask you to marry me, Felicity Smoak,” he corrected with a smile that beamed of adoration. He pushed up from his knees at last, taking her hands and pulling her up with him.

“I’m not sure Smoak’s even a real name,” she mumbled as she got to her feet.

“It doesn’t matter,” he said, as if the idea of a name was far too insignificant of a deal. “Because you have a whole future of ‘real’ to experience. What’s real is my arms around you, our smoke detector disagreeing with our cooking, and us at the Grand Canyon sunrise. Real is pink lipstick, it’s…broken coffee machines, and my toothbrush next to yours and absolutely you in my shirt,” he said, his arms coasting over the sleeves of the one she wore. “Names can change. Right now, you are Felicity Meghan Smoak. It may be a false name to him, but it is real for you. And one day you’ll be Felicity Meghan Queen, and that will be real as well.”

She had no words to reply to that. She didn’t need to. This was a man she had feared losing for so long, and now she didn’t have to. Maybe he was ruining a surprise about the idea of making her his wife, but she needed it. Marriage wasn’t something she was ready for right then, but Oliver knew that. He was giving her time to be ready for it, and when she was, he would ask her. For now, knowing that he wanted to marry her was all the assurance that she needed.


	20. Sweat It Out

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anonymous said: Felicity gets the flu…

There were tissues everywhere. Oliver stepped around them as much as he could, but couldn’t hide the look on his face that was half concern and half desperate determination to keep away from the germ-infested balls. He nudged one out of the way with his foot, following the trail all the way to the origins of Felicity’s desk - where there were a whole pile more of tissues.

Inching quietly around her desk, he listened to those painfully innocent sniffles before leaning over the monitor from behind it, pressing the button the plunged the screen into darkness.

Her eyes raised to him as if he’d caused harm to a puppy in front of her.

“Go home,” he told her softly.

“No,” she croaked back, her voice soft but scratched.

–

The next day her stubbornness continued.

“Go home,” he told her, when he went to her office to meet her for lunch and found her coughing harshly into a similar pile of tissues. He wasn’t sure how she’d managed a conference call already today, but it probably had something to do with the mountain of cold medication at her side, and the half-empty bottle of cough syrup she was essentially drinking straight from the bottle.

“No,” she shook her head, and carried on working.

–

The day after that, he found her throwing up in the bathroom at the foundry, an offset of far too much coughing that had turned into retching and then the Big Belly Burger comfort food she’d overloaded on had made a shuddering reappearance.

Oliver crouched behind her, drawing her hair back into a ponytail and rubbing her back until she’d leaned back against him.

“Take me home?” she asked.

–

Boyfriend Points were a real thing.

Oliver knew how to earn them in spades.

–

He took her home, just as she’d asked, and she didn’t ask for anything more after that. He was one step ahead of her. She dozed off in the car on the way home, curled into the passenger seat, so he’d lifted her up into his arms and carried her into their apartment. Well, Thea’s apartment, still. This time next week they’d have a lease signed on their own house just outside the city, but for now they had borrowed the guest room for a while longer.

He took her straight to bed, sitting her on the edge and she barely woke up enough for him to help take off her coat and her shoes. He left her t-shirt on, but did slide her jeans down her legs just so she could be comfortable, then lay her back against her pillow and let her sleep.

–

“Oliver,”

He snapped his eyes awake at the sound of her tiny voice, rolling onto his side where she was facing away from him. His hand found her back, stroking there lightly. “Hey,” he whispered. “Do you need anything?”

“I don’t feel good,” she confessed quietly.

He sat up, leaning over her slightly and pulling her hair back from her forehead, pressing his hand there. “You’ve got a fever,” he confirmed, dropping his lips to the top of her head. “I don’t think this is a cold, Felicity, I think this is the flu.”

“I don’t wanna move,” she mumbled, eyes shut.

“Stay there,” he whispered, moving around her and climbing out of the bed. “I’ll get you some water and something to help.”

He didn’t wait for an answer before he went down to the kitchen, bringing back whatever cold medication they had left and a glass of water. When he returned she was trying to breath through a coughing fit, which didn’t help with how blocked her nose was as well. Her chest wheezed when she looked up at him and reached for the water, and yeah, he was totally understanding why his mother said she never used to sleep when he was sick as a child because watching someone suffer within their own body was really horrible.

When she’d finished drinking, she looked in turmoil. Her sleep-desperate eyes longed for the comfort of bed, but laying down was making it harder for her to breath.

“Come on,” he said, bringing his arms around her back and beneath her legs, lifting her into his arms.

“No,” she protested weakly, but clung her arms around his neck.

“It’ll help,” he promised her, carrying her through to their en-suite bathroom and sitting her on the edge of the bathtub. He went over to the stand-alone shower and ran it at it’s highest temperature, filling the room with steam. He left the glass door wide open, and went back to Felicity. “Come on, breath this in deep,” he encouraged, moving them both to sit on the ground beside the open door.

She leaned back against him, letting him hold her upright. “So hot,” she complained, through her skin was shuddering.

“I know,” he said, kissing her sweating forehead. “We’re just going to break the fever, okay? Then we can go back to sleep.”

“‘kay,” she mumbled, coughing a few times but it was starting to ease in it’s severity.

After around an hour, Felicity was fast asleep against him, and he leaned around her to shut off the scalding water without burning either of them. He woke her just enough to run a far cooler wash cloth over her arms and face, then he was lifting her again, carrying her back to bed.

“You’re a really good nurse,” she mumbled when he laid the duvet back over her.

“Get some sleep,” he whispered back.

–

The next afternoon, when she eventually woke up, was a multitude of sneezing, discarded tissues and Disney movies. Oliver never realised there were so many, or that there were so many songs, or just how many Felicity knew the words to. He could tell that by the way destroyed her own will power and vocal ability to croak her way through them all.

“Need more water?” he asked her after the end of Finding Nemo.

She shook her head. “I’m good.” Her voice betrayed her.

He stretched out, drawing her back against him. “Feeling any better?” he asked as he smoothed back her hair. She didn’t look it, with pale cheeks home to blotches of post-fever read.

“A bit,” she sighed, curling into the arm he so readily offered her. “Thank you.”

“For what?” he asked, carting his fingers through her messed hair.

“Taking care of me,” she said quietly.

He kissed the top of her head, adjusting his arms to hold her just a little tighter. “I’m always gonna take care of you,” he assured her.

“Even if you have to save the city first?” she questioned.

“You are my city,” he smiled mostly to himself.


	21. I Do

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anonymous said: “I do.”

“And do you, Oliver Jonas Queen, take Felicity Meghan Smoak to be your lawfully wedded wife?”

Did he?

Did he take this woman, who challenged him? Who loved him? Who believed in him?

Did he take this woman, who known he was going to propose seconds before he reached for the right, when they had been laying on the couch one night? The woman who had once refused to bring him coffee with such certainty that she delivered every cup with a verbal fanfare? The woman who crept into his heart with panda flats and colour-rimmed glasses? The woman who lured in his affections with a swing of her ponytail and a twitch of her smile?

Did he take this woman who loved him? Who rubbed his sore muscles after he pushed himself too far? The woman who took his hand and made him feel like a real man? The woman who smiled at him across a room and instantly warmed his heart? The woman who dressed up for him and dressed down for him? The woman whose cartoon print pyjamas littered his laundry basket and his heart? The woman who snored when she had a cold and who woke up in the night every time he had a nightmare?

Did he take this woman who sought out the best version of him? Who sought out Oliver Queen beneath Ollie, beneath the Hood, beneath the Arrow, beneath the shadows of his own self doubt? The woman who lead him into a happy life with soft hands and a kind soul? The woman who made pancakes like a saint and taught him how to make at least seven decent meals? The woman who showed him he could be more than a vigilante, that he could be a man who loved, who achieved, a man who was loved in return?

Did he take this woman who completed him? Who filled the spaces in his body with the touch of her bare skin? The woman who fit into his arms every night with their legs and arms entwined? The woman who placed kisses on the scars he no longer saw as painful reminders? The woman who placed a tattoo of an arrow in a place only he could see it? The woman who allowed his lips to mark because she was his and he was most definitely hers?

Did he take this woman as his wife? Did he take her as his partner? His best friend? His lover? The mother of his children? The love of his life? Did he take her as the woman who would grow old at his side? Who would laugh at his terrible jokes but correct them with better ones? Who would care for him as he cared for her? Who would love him, eternally, until the end of his days?

He smiled. The answer was simple.

“I do.”


	22. How You Bring Me Back To Life

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anonymous said:
> 
> Olicity prompt: Oliver has to watch felicity be tortured by Ra’s. Please write this.
> 
> Note: Okay, I altered this a little…

Originally posted by thecwarrow

Oliver awoke to a scream.

Both he and Diggle shot into seated positions from where they had been laid out on the ground at opposite ends of the dock. He hadn’t even remembered falling asleep, but his hand instantly shot to his side for his bow, which was gone. In a scramble, he reached for his knife in his boot, which was thankfully still in place. Diggle was on his feet, his gun gone but alert and looking around for the source of the scream, but Oliver jogged over to him with another sinking feeling. Their weapons weren’t the only things that were gone.

“Felicity,” he murmured, looking around for any evidence of where she was. It took a further second for him to panic when he gazed upon her heels, carelessly tossed aside beside her coat. She’d been using it as a pillow when she fell asleep at the beginning of their stakeout, but Oliver and Diggle had been wide awake in the car to watch over her. Now, they were thirty feet away from the car, disarmed and dishevelled, with the lingering headache that told him everything they needed to know.

They’d been found. They’d been drugged.

Felicity was gone.

The scream sounded again. Louder. Clearer. His name.

The bile rose in his throat and he bolted in direction of the scream. Felicity’s scream. He’d never heard her scream like that before, but he knew it was hers. He knew Diggle was behind him as he ran straight for the warehouse they’d been watching. He wasn’t thinking about exit strategies or what lay inside, only about her. Because that awful, guttural scream was coming from the woman he loved and it was the soundtrack of his nightmares.

He tried to tell himself that she was using her voice to alert them, that she’d realised the danger she was in, knew they had been drugged, and had screamed as loud as she could to ensure that they would hear her. After all, she had been taken directly from them and she knew they were both sleeping. But not a single part of him believed it. It sounded too pained, afraid, even. It had awoken a part of him that had a primal need to see her, an indescribable pull towards wherever she was.

But after three minutes of sprinting into the abandoned warehouse, the constant echoes of her screams dropped into silence. Oliver stopped with it and listened, the sound had been so close but the abrupt stop sent a chill through hi. She had to be here, there was no where else she could have been taken.

“FELICITY!” he shouted out as loud as he could.

He heard a disturbing shuffle, not a struggle, more like a drag, and he barely waited for the presence of Diggle at his side before he rushed towards it.

He stopped at the back of the warehouse, behind some scrap metal concealing the rear exit. From what he could see the only entrance into the area was the way they’d just came, completely overrun with scrap and rusted metal sheets. The steel posts stretched up to the rafters, where the holes in the roof allowed the moonlight to light the area in an eerie manner. There, a flash of bright blue, a familiar dress, swinging from a solitary role leading from the crossing of beams was a noose…and hanging from it, as still as the midnight air…was Felicity.

“NO!”

Oliver’s cry was filled with anguish and burst from his body when he saw hers hanging from the rope. She wasn’t fighting. She wasn’t struggling. She wasn’t looking for him. Her arms were limp at her sides, her bare feet from her discarded heels dusty and bloody from being dragged across the ground, now hovering inches above the pit of broken glass and rusted nails that must have pierced her skin. Her eyes were covered with a dirty rag tied around her head. She was just hanging…hanging…

When Diggle pushed past him, Oliver knotted his hands into his hair, staring at her still form with a fear in his heart he hadn’t felt since he’d walked in and found Thea on the floor in a pool of her own blood. This was what Ra’s had done. This was exactly what he wanted. Ra’s arranged for him to watch the women he loved die. First his sister, now Felicity had fallen victim to Damien Darhk in the same manner… He was vaguely aware of Diggle shouting his name, but he didn’t react until Oliver was hoisting himself onto a block of scrap and had his knife out. It was then that Oliver snapped out of it, lurching forward to grab her body so that when Diggle cut the rope she wouldn’t fall onto the ground.

They were at eye-level, he realised with a sickening lunge of his stomach. He curled his arms around her, holding her bridal style in his arms which instantly loosened the rope around her neck.

Diggle cut through it, and Oliver gently moved Felicity to the ground away from anything that might hurt her, loosening the knot with trembling hands and slipping it from around her neck. His stomach turned as his actions revealed the horrific rope burns and the bruising around her once perfect skin. Placing both hands behind her head to loosen the rag around her eyes, he spoke to her with a trembling voice. “Fel..Felicity?”

She had to respond. She’d know it was him.

She didn’t move.

He leaned close when she didn’t react, and he was horrified to feel that none of her warm breath hit against his skin. “She’s not breathing,” he mumbled, and he laid her flat and begun to give her compressions. “Digg, she’s not breathing, she’s…”

He couldn’t finish the sentence. Instead, he kept his hands pressed to the centre of her chest, trying not to think that the body beneath him was Felicity.

“Oliver, let me-” Diggle tried to pry him away to take over, but he shrugged him off. The seconds were passing too quickly and he was becoming more desperate, a strangled sound too similar to a sob breaking through with each compression. He needed her to live. He needed her to survive this. She couldn’t leave him alone in this life without her. She couldn’t leave him to take her body back. He couldn’t call Donna and tell her that he’d failed, that he’d allowed her baby girl to be hurt. He couldn’t allow her to die. They were a team and she was the better half of it. She needed to live.

“Don’t you dare leave me,” he told her breathlessly, as he continued to pound on her chest. He pounded her chest again, then tilted her head back and forced a breath of air into her lungs. “You don’t get to leave me, Felicity!”

Another breath, and afterwards his head rested on hers just for a moment, his hand still on her hair. “Don’t leave me, Felicity…please, don’t leave me…”

Diggle was still saying his name, talking nonsensically about ambulances but Oliver refused to move. He went to resume the compressions when he felt her struggle beneath him. Movement. From her. Movement meant life. Pulling his hands away, she gasped furiously for air and she struggled to get enough of it. He raised her up, his arms supporting her and embracing her against him.

“Felicity,” he panted, breathless but nowhere near as badly as she was. “Felicity…” he kept repeating her name while she struggled to get her breath back. Her body needed oxygen and wouldn’t be denied any longer. Her head fell back against his arm, her eyes found his once her vision began to clear. They were bloodshot and unfocused, but stopped flitting around when they locked on his. “That’s it,” he nodded at her. “Just breathe. Please, just keep breathing. I’ve got you.”

She was powerless to do anything else. No matter how deep her breaths were she was unable to satisfy the burning in her lungs. It was several minutes before her breaths became steadier and less desperate, but she kept her eyes on Oliver the entire time. Diggle put his hand on Oliver’s shoulder and went to flag the ambulance down, but Oliver didn’t look up - he couldn’t look away form those eyes when he’d spent a frightening moment thinking he’d never see them again - they really were the most amazing shade of blue - and he placed a hand on her cheek to hold their gaze together.

“Please, keep breathing. Please.” He continued this whisper until he felt it was stable enough for his liking.

That was when he noticed how much they were both trembling - his was probably just shock and he felt they weren’t too bad, but her violent shakes were taking over her entire form. “Hey,” he mumbled, bringing his arms tighter around him. Despite the strength in his arms there was a tenderness and that set in a reality for her, he could see something visibly snap in her eyes and a single tear slipped out her bloodshot eyes. He shook his head, keeping his hand on her cheek. “No, no, you’re okay now,” he told her. “It’s okay,” he said firmly, though his voice was thick. “You’re okay now, Felicity. I’ve got you.”

“Oliver,” she croaked, her voice hoarse and battered.

It was hard, because it was her. She was always his calm in the storm, and now she was hurt, she was shaking, she was scared. It was heartbreaking. He didn’t want to see her like this. Damien had did this to her. Damien had been strong enough to overpower them all and steal her away. Damen could have silently hung her and he’d have never known until her corpse was found. Damien had picked her off in the dead of night and tried to kill her in a display of dominance, a warning, but all he could do was hold her and assure her that she was alive. “I’ve got you,” he whispered.

His heart was pounding and he could easily have pulled her in that little bit closer and kissed her just out of relief. He’d always felt more protective of her in his own way, but this had kicked him into overdrive. He’d never experienced this combination of fear and relief in his entire life, and certainly not for his own life. He’d had an unhealthy level of disregard for his own life in his missions, but never hers; this was different. He’d never had to force air into her lungs before. He’d never held her technically dead body in his arms.

He stood up with her in his arms, but she still didn’t struggle. She didn’t try to stand, insist she was fine, attempt to walk it off. She was afraid of this place now, and she had good reason to be. He shifted her to get her comfortable and she tried to put her head against shoulder. The movement scratched her raw throat against the shirt he wore and she groaned at the contact. He turned his head, brushing his lips against her forehead as his hands were occupied. “It’s okay,” he whispered, as she placed her arms around the back of his neck. “We’re getting out of here, I’ll get you out of here.”

Diggle had cancelled the ambulance when she’d woken up, realising they had no story they could tell that didn’t get them into trouble, but he had brought the car around and Oliver moved her into the back to lay her in his lap. They managed to get back to the foundry without any unwanted attention, but once they arrived he could see the adrenaline was wearing away and she looked as though she might lose consciousness. He set her down in their medical bay and placed his hands on either side of her face.

“Felicity…Felicity, look at me.” Her eyes rolled to meet his and he nodded. “Good, stay awake, okay? Don’t close your eyes, okay? Stay with me.”

She didn’t answer at first, but every breath she took wheezed in her throat. “Oliver,” she moaned, bringing a hand to her neck.

“Wait, don’t touch it,” he said, leaving her side just to go over to the sink. He exchanged a look with Diggle as he did, and with a nod he got straight onto the security footage. Damien had to have shown his face sometime.

He went back to her side with a cup of water and a small scrap of cloth that would do for a washcloth. He dabbed it in the water and bought one of the stools over to the steel table, moving it towards her neck until she recoiled. “Felicity, don’t do this,” he told her. “I need to clean it or it’ll get infected. If you can’t let me do this we’ll need to get you checked at the emergency room. It’s going to hurt, I won’t lie to you, but you have to let me take care of you now, okay?”

She hesitated but stopped moving away from him, allowing him to apply the damp cloth. She didn’t hide the horrible moan that would escape her strained throat or the few years that pooled in the corner of her eyes. Her scratched hands balled up into fists. When he finished he laid the cloth against her neck to keep it covered. “All done, good girl,” he told her, wiping away the escaped tear with his thumb. The gesture just made another escape but he got that one too.

“Oliver…”

“Try not to talk,” he said softly, brushing the matted hair away from her face and keeping the hand on her forehead after. His other arm was rested on the the table beside her but he moved his hand to uncurl one of her fists and grip it with his own.

“He-”

“-is not going to hurt you again,” he finished her sentence.

“Don’t leave,” she whispered, her eyes starting to drop again as dizziness took her again.

He lowered his head so that their foreheads were touching, his hand still on her face. Their breath was mingled now and if he was any closer their lips would be touching, but instead it was a reassurance. “You look at me,” he told her and waited until her eyes met his. “You’re going to keep your eyes on me. Do not go to sleep, not yet. You need to stay awake just for a little while. I’m not leaving, Felicity.” He didn’t even start to move away. She needed to feel the strange security that she’d only ever felt with him watching her and he needed to feel her alive and breathing against him. “I’m never leaving, Felicity.”

–

The sun was finally rising as they arrived back at her apartment. Their apartment. Before they’d left they had covered her injuries with a thin piece of gauze, but she’d declined any painkillers. Oliver had slipped some into his pocket as they’d left, though, knowing she’d need some later. He’d carried her in from the car without any argument from her, carrying her through to the bedroom and setting her down on the bed and watching as she curled into the centre of it, drawing the blankets over her lap with a pillow behind her back.

As their eyes met, they shared a look for the longest moments until he looked down at her hands, noticing that her wrists held the same bruises as her neck and were still trembling. Everything he’d ever learned about shock dawned upon him and he reached into the dresser beside the bed to pull out one of his hooded sweatshirts and handed it to her, wanting her to be warm even if it was a size too large for her. She slipped it over her head without allowing it to brush the dressing, and once the sweater was on she appeared smaller before him. Her hands were still shaking though, from shock not from cold, and he took them in his own to hold them still, his thumb brushing against the bruises. “I’m sorry, Felicity. I should have gotten to you sooner. We should… I should have-“

She leaned forward from the bed, resting her head on his shoulder to silence him. His arms fell easily around her, understanding that she was trying to convey that it was okay but not able to put it into words. Someone, something, had nearly killed her. And it wasn’t an accident. It was a pinpointed attack on her, she had been picked off, dragged away and overpowered. That was unsettling for him, but he couldn’t even imagine how that would feel to her. When he had first bought her into his arms, she had been dead, and that was something that hadn’t gone away for either of them.

She could remember fear, for the first time since Slade, she was feeling a fear that rendered her unable to move. She’d wondered at first if it was something else, some other force causing the motionlessness, but then again they never did know what they were up against. But once she realised that she was afraid, she had felt fear towards the possibility of dying for the first time. She’d never considered herself afraid of dying, but then again she’d never come that close. She’d been in the path of bullets before that had clipped her, but she’d never been forced to consider what it might mean to die. This was much the same as that, she remembered darkness and the feel of a rope around her neck, and then a screaming that she hadn’t realised immediately was coming from her. Then the real darkness set in, different to the one caused by whatever was covering her eyes. Darkness. Darkness. And then everything was coming back and Oliver was there. Oliver holding her. Oliver talking to her. Oliver sounding like he was close to tears. Oliver saving her life. Oliver protecting her. Oliver. Oliver. Oliver.

“Oliver,”

She spoke his name out loud and in this embrace she felt the shudder run through him and the thick swallow that revealed the lump in his throat. “God, Felicity, I really thought you were dead,” he spoke through the thick throat, placing a hand on the back of her head to hold her against him. Neither were sure whether that action was to comfort her or him. “I thought I’d really lost you this time.”

“You saved me,” she whispered.

“I was nearly too late,” he admitted. “You can’t ever leave me, okay?” She nodded against him as much as she could without hurting her neck. “I’m sorry I couldn’t stop this,” he whispered, his hand knotting in her hair but not causing pain.

“It wasn’t your fault,” she told him.

“I saw you hanging there and I…nothings ever hurt like that before. I thought you were gone. I thought that was it, that I’d not even got a chance to… That I’d slept through someone hurting you.”

She said nothing back to this and just held herself against him. She was still trying not to speak too much but she found that after the pain of the immediate trauma the speaking part wasn’t too much now, the bruising pain was starting to set in but it no longer hurt to gasp for breath or to swallow. Speaking was only hurting if she raised her voice, and keeping the whispered words between them was certainly helping.

It took Oliver a long time to release her, but he knew she was in pain and she needed the painkillers. He’d almost lost her. For a few moments he had, and after holding her lifeless body in his arms he wouldn’t pretend for a moment that this hadn’t devastated him. When he did finally pull away he looked at her slightly calmer eyes and kissed her forehead. “I’ll get you some water,” he told her quietly.

He stepped away to the ensuite bathroom to fill an empty glass from beside the bed with water. He didn’t close the door, but even though she could have seen him the whole time her hands were trembling when he returned. From the strange look she was directing at her own hands, it looked like she wasn’t even sure why they were shaking. He came back to her side and handed her the pills and the water, which she didn’t argue against. She might not have asked for it, but she was clear headed enough to know that she needed something to bring the bruised pain down before the muscles seized up. After stretching her neck a little more than she should have to swallow the pills, she grimaced and raised her hand to the dressing as if she were about to press down on it, or worse, remove it.

“No, Felicity,”

“It’s itching, it’s making it worse,” she told him.

“You can’t take it off yet, you need to keep infections out of it,” he told her. “I know it’s uncomfortable but I’ll get some replacement dressings and I’ll change them in a few hours for you.” She looked unconvinced, but he insisted firmly. “Come on, Felicity. It’s me or a hospital. Just let me take care of you for a while, okay? Humour me.”

She sighed, but didn’t push him away, and he nodded to this small victory.

“We should get some sleep,” he suggested.

“It’s morning,” she pointed out.

“Yeah, but I think the adrenaline’s about to wear off for you soon,” he reasoned. “You comfy in that?” he asked.

She nodded to keep the sweatshirt on, but he waited while she removed the pants and slipped under the sheets on the bed. Now was not the time to catch a sneaky peek of her backside while she undressed. He pulled the shutter down across the window but it did nothing to hide the fact that the sun was now fully risen in the sky, and then pulled off his own mud-stricken shirt and pants, leaving him in just his boxers. He desperately needed a shower, as did she, but he didn’t want to hassle them with trying not to get the dressing wet and the unbearable pain that would follow if she got shampoo in the wounds, so he stepped away to throw some water on his face and went back towards the bed. He fell onto the mattress before he took up a seated position beside her.

“You’re sleeping too,” she told him when she noticed he hadn’t lied down like she had.

He shook his head with a far off expression. He ran a hand over his face to clear it and then shook his head a bit more firmly. “No, I know what I’ll see when I close my eyes and I never want to see that again,” he told her.

She reached over and took his hand, opting for the one on his far side so that their clasped hands rested between his stomach and his chest. “Sleep, Oliver.”

“Felicity, A few hours ago I was holding your body in my arms and you weren’t breathing. I had to force you to start breathing again, and until today I’ve never had to force you to do anything other than step away from a computer for a few hours.” He focused hard on their entwined hands, not able to meet her eyes. “Nothing ever hurt me as much as it did to see you like that. You were dead in my arms,” he choked the words out painfully like a cough. “That sight will haunt me for the rest of my life. I can’t close my eyes yet knowing that I’ll see it over and over again, I need to spent more time seeing you alive first.”

At this, his eyes raised to meet hers and she understood what he meant. She was afraid of the darkness to, but she hadn’t seen her attacker, though she’d suspected who he was. She felt afraid of an enemy that she couldn’t identify, an unknown evil which had overpowered her so easily and attempted to discard of her as a warning. That scared her. Slowly, she moved closer to him, not stopping until she had wound herself underneath one of his arms and rested in a way that wasn’t leaning on her throat. Her chest was pressed against his side so that she knew he would be able to feel her heart beating.

“Take as long as you need,” she told him softly.

He was silent and still for a moment but she then felt his arms loosen around her as he relaxed into the position more, no longer sitting upright. “And it takes forever?” he asked.

“Then we do this every night,” she told him.

He raised his lips in a smile that didn’t meet his eyes, and rolled onto his side. Now, they were facing each other with entwined hands between them, foreheads touching. “It’s not night,” he reminded her. “It’s morning.”

“Then we do it in the morning too,” she decided.

Her eyelids were dropping now that the adrenaline was wearing away, leaving her exhausted. He wondered if she truly knew what they were both implying, but for now, it was enough to feel her skin against his, her bare legs around his covered ones and her breath against his cheek. She was alive. She was alive, and she was going to stay that way. And that was enough.

“I can live with that.”


	23. It Was My Hands

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anonymous said:
> 
> Oliver as Al sahim, accidentally shoots Felicity with arrows.

Oliver was a champion when it came to apologising to her. He was always apologising somehow, but he was sweet about it. He was genuine. That was what made her accept them, because she could tell he meant them. He was an open book to her. His whispered ‘sorry’s meant just as much to her as when he’d told her ‘you were right’. But now he was leaning over, tears - real tears - falling onto the top of her chest, pooling in her clavicle. He sobbed the words “I’m sorry” into the parts of her body that he’d been kissing only moments before, and that hurt even more than the angry, healing wounds.

She didn’t blame him, as she repeatedly told him, but getting him to understand that was hard. He hadn’t been in control of his actions. Al Sah-Him had been the one to put two arrows in her side, so lost in the manipulation and mind control of Ra’s Al Ghul that he hadn’t been able to fight the compulsion to hurt everyone Oliver Queen loved, but the manipulative sense had lifted briefly afterwards, just enough that he could be fully aware of what he had done and who he had unleashed his twisted talents on. He’d seen himself unleash arrows of intentional harm on Felicity, his friend, his partner, his…well, his everything, and he hadn’t been able to do a thing to stop himself. He’d watched her cry out in pain, struggle in his arms, and worst of all, with tears spilling over her cheeks with no abandon as she pleaded with him to stop and to win over Ra’s control.

And now, alone, with Ra’s so far gone from their lives, she comforted him while he cried.

They’d left Starling City with good intentions for moving on away from the vigilante life, to discover the real Oliver Queen that had been slowly growing beneath the Arrow and had curdled under Al Sah-Him. The motel had called to them as the urgency for sleep had her nodding off against the arm she’d propped at the window, and they were left alone in the silence. She hadn’t known what to say at first - she knew that he argued enough with the voices in his head that were there already without the addition of one with a malicious nature - but he’d seen so distraught to see the still-healing wounds on her waist that she’d ended up holding him while he promised her that he’d never allow someone to inflict harm on her again.

But he couldn’t believe her when she told him that it was okay - because it wasn’t. He’d hurt her. He’d hurt her. Worse, he’d not been strong enough to overcome the part of him that was hurting her, and to say that he hated himself had been an understatement.

So she kissed him, proof that the emotion she had for him was still there, evidence that she truly didn’t blame him and that it hadn’t changed a thing, because she didn’t consider it his action. The kiss became more, as he sought the clarification that she was safe through the silent communication of her lips and the frantic movements they made to match his own. After he spent so much of the day with her at arm’s length to ensure that there were no lingering parts of Al Sah-Him he had to prevent from hurting her anymore, he wanted to feel every part of her against every part of him. He wanted skin upon skin, lips upon lips, and he wanted it all with no true agenda of what order he wanted this in, which left to a fumbled meeting of said lips and skin.

Clothing flew, first the sweaters that they’d needed to pull out once the sun had dipped and the air became cooler, and then the shirts beneath them. The pants remained - for now - but he knew that was only a matter of time before fumbling hands were once again unoccupied and the promise of new skin to explore was too tempting. He kissed her deeply, chests brushing chests as his hands travelled down across her stomach, but he stopped with an instant jerk as he felt the stomach muscles flinching under his hands. She tried to bring him back to her with a hand on the back of his neck, but by then his eyes had already flickered downward and filled with horror at the large purple bruise that circled the puncture marks at her side, spreading around the initial impact zone, and then the tears had come.

He reached out to it again as if he were going to touch it, but drew away as he was unwilling to feel that flinch again, even if it was an involuntary action by her pained muscles. He’d done the one thing he’d never wanted to do - hurt her. And this wasn’t an explainable hurt, either, not like the time in the restaurant where he’d pushed the table aside and thrown her to the ground to protect her from the blast - he’d done this on purpose: whether by his own intentions or Ra’s, his arrow had inflicted that damage upon her previously flawless curves.

“I’m sorry,” he gasped against her, as a shuddering of sobs hit him. Her hand was stroking through his hair in an instant attempt to cease the cries as she brought his head to her shoulder, her other hand gripping at his back. “I’m so sorry.”

“Shh, Oliver,” she whispered.

“I hurt you, I’m so sorry.”

“I’m okay.”

“You’re not okay, Felicity, look at yourself! I did that to you!”

“No, it wasn’t you.”

“It was my hands that first those arrows,” he cried in exasperation. “He’d have killed you with my hands. Mine! I couldn’t have lived with that.”

She drew his head up, placing a kiss to his now wet lips. “You don’t have to. I’m right here, Oliver. I’m in your arms.”

He shook his head. “I don’t deserve that.”

“And yet you have it all the same,” she assured him. “I am here with you, where I always will be, because I want to be. Because I trust you.”

“You shouldn’t,” he gasped out. “I hurt you.”

“Al Sah-Him hurt me.”

“Felicity,” he moaned in a desperately grieved tone. “Please.”

“No,” she shook her head, holding his gaze firmly to her own even as his tears leaked onto her cheeks. “No, Oliver. Don’t do this. Don’t pull away from me.”

He couldn’t say anything to that, and he returned his head to her shoulder, getting everything out of his system. They wouldn’t resume their previous activities, but they would hold each other until the hurt was gone, on the outside and the inside. So minutes later when she unzipped his pants and threw them to the ground with her shirt, she only did so to coax him under the blankets and lay him down. Her pants, and she thought that would be for the best in case the revealing of more skin upset him further, but he shook his head against her as reached under the blankets to remove all layers of clothing that remained along with his own.

“No,” he told her. “I need to feel you in my arms.”

She nodded with no contradiction and placed herself into the open arms that awaited her, and she didn’t complain when he held her slightly too tight against his chest, she just held him as tightly back until they both fell into a calmer place.

And when she was awoken two hours later in the darkness of midnight with his lips against her throat, she showed him just how much she still trusted him.


	24. Women Aren't Like Dinosaurs

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anonymous said:
> 
> Olicity prompt:: Oliver has to choose between Felicity and Thea.

“So, what do you think, Ollie?”

Oliver froze in sheer panic. He had felt fear in his life many times, he had faced death, experienced death - conquered death, even! But this? This was far more frightening than the idea of Ra’s sword running through him. Actually, that sounded rather inviting at the moment. How quickly could he get to Nanda Parbat? Six, seven hours? Worth it.

“Well?”

They were still in the kitchen, and he was lying on the couch, out of sight. Maybe they were just hoping he was there and hadn’t actually seen him. They’d marathoned the Jurassic Park movies a few days ago, and they’d mentioned how a tyrannosaurus couldn’t actually see you if you didn’t move. Did women work like that? He hoped so. He was relying on that.

“Oliver, don’t ignore us, we can see you.”

Well, shit. Jurassic Park lied.

“Sorry, I didn’t hear the question,” he mumbled, slowly sitting upright and looking for any exit.

“We asked you whether you wanted pizza or Chinese food for dinner,” Thea said, her hand firmly planted on her hip. “I want Chinese food, but Felicity wants pizza.”

He’d been dreading this day for too long.

“I…I really don’t mind what we eat.”

“Well, we can’t agree so it’s up to you.”

But this was so much more than food. This was a choice. His sister or his girlfriend, and they knew it. They were standing in matching poses, watching him carefully.

“But you should know…” Thea started. “That the pizza place Felicity wants to order from is very well known for violating health codes.”

“That was just a rumour,” Felicity said to her defensively. “Besides, Oliver, you know Chinese is a bad choice, they cook most things in nut oil, and I don’t want to spend the night in the emergency room again.”

He bit his lip. There was no escape.

“I’m…not even all that hungry,” he lied.

Then his stomach rumbled.

Loudly.

Maybe they didn’t hear.

“Well, that’s obviously a lie,” Thea deadpanned.

“Well…why don’t we all get what we want?” he suggested.

“Because you’ll get Chinese and the last time you did that and kissed me I ended up with lips like a trout,” Felicity reminded him.

“So which is it, Oliver?” they asked him in unison.

His sister.

Or.

His girlfriend.

His girlfriend or his sister.

This is it. This is what real fear is made of.

If he upset his sister, he’d spend weeks making it up to her and suffering her glares.

If he upset his girlfriend, there’d be no sex tonight and possibly a hospital trip.

Equal suffering.

Then, he had a brainwave.

“Well, Oliver?”

Oh, Oliver Queen, you clever man.

“Just decide which one you want.”

“I really want an Indian, actually,” he decided.


	25. Honey, The Baby's Crying

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anonymous said:
> 
> “Honey, the baby’s crying.”

Oliver was regretting Russia. He was regretting Russia badly. He wasn’t sure why the Bratva felt the need to keep him ‘in the loop’ so often as they did, but it usually ended with a few more bruises than he originally anticipated. This time, at least, it was nothing a good long sleep wouldn’t fix, but they’d been robbed of that by some local gang activity the moment they’d stepped off the plane. Now, after skimming past jet lag with some far-too-strong coffee, Oliver was absolutely regretting Russia.

Miraculously, he made it back to the foundry without falling asleep on the bike. It seemed he’d now gone through the point of being tired and was simply existing without being able to move all that quickly, so he was very lucky the roads were as empty as they were. Overtired and aching from head to toe, he just wanted to get changed out of his leathers and go to sleep.

Making his way down the stairs, he deposited his bow in the display case and found himself…joining a queue?

He frowned. “What’s going o–?”

“Shh!” Thea and Diggle both insisted at the same time. He frowned at them, then followed their gaze over to Felicity’s desk.

Felicity was sprawled delicately over the top of her desk. It looked as if she had fallen asleep resting on her hand and then simply collapsed down from there. One arm was outstretched beneath her head as a makeshift pillow and the other was laid gently beneath her face. Oliver’s first instinct was jealously, with a little resentment that he’d been out chasing down gang members while she’d clearly been asleep for a few hours, but his expression changed when he noticed that her sleeping face had a wash of relaxation covering it. Rarely did she let her guard down like this in front of the others - in front of him, sure - but he could understand their fascination with the sight. Her face was glowing from the reflection of the computer screens, her blonde hair down from the ponytail and spread around her, tousled and angled from the ferocity in which she would run her fingers through it when she was this exhausted.

Beautiful.

The word escaped his lips without meaning to, but he was saved from the teasing looks of his friend and sister by the snore that echoed from Felicity and caused them both to laugh softly.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen her so…calm,” Thea said, tilting her head. “There’s no keyboard tapping, it’s a little…”

“Too quiet,” Diggle finished with a nod.

“She hasn’t slept enough lately,” Oliver agreed. “Let her sleep, then I’ll take her home.”

And so they let her sleep. Oliver showered, changed, and packed up everything he needed to go home, then looked at her apprehensively. He considered just picking her up and taking her to the car, but if she ended up leaving a program running she’d make him drive her back in the middle of the night to fix it. Instead, he watched her, Thea returning to his side.

“Just wake her up, give her a nudge,” she encouraged.

“She’s grumpy when she’s just woken up,” he said reluctantly.

“She’s your girlfriend,” she reminded him.

“And I love her with all my heart, but… Felicity doesn’t do mornings.”

“It’s not morning.”

“She doesn’t know that.”

Thea raised her eyebrows, then turned to him again. “So how did you wake her up when you were on your road trip?”

“I didn’t.”

“Liar,” she smirked at him.

Oliver gave her an exasperated shake of his head. “Thea, I’d been basically celibate for a year. Do you really want to know how I woke her up?”

Thea winced, making a disgusted face, then shook her entire body to rid herself of the thought. Then her face brightened. “Do you remember how Dad used to wake Mom up?”

Oliver looked confused, but the memory surfaced and he gave her a curious lift of his eyebrow. “I can’t do that to Felicity, she’ll…hurt me.”

“Her morning moods can’t be that bad.”

“Thea, there are parts of my anatomy that haven’t fulfilled their biological purpose yet, and I’d hate for Felicity to remove them and keep them in a jar,” he explained to her, while Diggle just laughed behind them.

Thea rolled her eyes. “Oh, come on, she may as well have them in a jar already.”

He turned to her. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means you’re too scared to do it.”

“I am not Dad, and Felicity is not Mom-”

“Just do it!”

Sucking up what remaining bravado he had left, Oliver went to Felicity’s side. He took a deep breath, glared at his sister, and edged his fingers towards her hair, sweeping it over her shoulder to reveal her ear. She shifted slightly in her sleep, moving towards his touch with a gentle smile teasing at the corner of her lips. Perfect, he thought to himself. Leaning close, he let his lips brush against her ear for a moment, sending a jolt through him as he whispered those words…

“Honey, the baby’s crying.”

Instantly, Felicity bolted up from the desk, half-asleep and unaware of her audience. She looked around her, her arms even reaching out for this non-existent child, but when she realised what had happened, she narrowed her eyes tiredly. “That’s mean…”

Thea burst out laughing, to the extent that Diggle lead her away and Oliver bit into his lip to hide his smile, coasting his fingers through her hair. “It was a little funny.”

But Felicity still frowned, sleep and confused. “Why would somebody do that to a woman?” she asked aloud.

“My dad used to do it to my mom,” he explained.

“I hope she beat the shit out of him afterwards,” Felicity mumbled as she returned her head to the desk.

“Come on, sleepy girl,” Oliver told her, leaning down and scooping his tired love up into his arm. “Let’s get you home.”


	26. Are You Ready?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> sickandtwisteddoc said:
> 
> “One of them is sick and slowly dying and ask the other to euthanize him/her” P.S. I’m sorry

She’s sick. Breast cancer.

He watches her fight it the same way he’s watched her fight everything, with a whole heart and a fierce determination, until she has nothing more to give. He’s been at her side for days, never straying, never leaving, because it’ll happen soon. Everyone knows it.

The children have come every day with their families. It’s good to see them all together. They’ll need each other soon.

Ava takes charge, as she always does. The eldest, the most headstrong, the most like him, really. She arranges for the best medical care at home, because Felicity always hated hospitals and she refuses to spend her last days in one. She wants to be at home. Home is where she is loved and is with her memories.

She sleeps a lot. She wants to be in her own bed, at least. In their bed.

Ava’s there the whole time. All of her kids have moved out now, her eldest daughter just settling down with a family of her own - they’re great-grandparents now to a six month old! - and her younger twin daughters went to college in the fall. She split from her husband several years ago, so she essentially moved back home as soon as Felicity got sick and needed help around the house.

Tommy comes every day without family, dragging his daughter with him at the weekends. Like Oliver, Tommy waited a while to bring life into the world - though Tommy a lot longer - and he knows his granddaughters reluctance isn’t because of her distaste to be there, but because this is the first time Hannah’s ever seen a sickness on this scale and it scares her. He’d put a hand on her shoulder the last time she was here but she hadn’t reacted to it.

Emily comes every day after work - she stepped in as CEO for the Queen Incorporated after Ava retired early and even now, Felicity wants that company up and running. She’s already made a plan for the transfer to the first grandchild that wants to take control of the company and they both know their children will decide well which of them is really prepared to run the company.

But for Felicity, her time is coming to an end.

He knows it when she turns her head to him one day, where he’s stood right beside her and mutters a single word.

“Now?”

He shakes his head, placing his hand on her forehead and whispering back. “Not yet.”

She asks him next when Ava takes her grandson home to his mother, and Oliver wants to cry from the sight of his wonderful, perfect, amazing wife holding their first great-grandchild, because who’d have thought he’d even get a great-grandchild? But there he is, baby Oliver, in the arms of his great-grandmother with her silver hair and her smile-creased face, and Oliver wants to bawl his fracking eyes out.

“Now?” she asks, when she lays there and reaches for him, and for the first time looks content in what is happening to her.

“Not yet,” he whispers back, stroking her arm as he sits at her side.

But now, now it’s time.

The kids know it. (Kids, he calls them, as if they aren’t all parents themselves). Their goodbyes are a little more tearful. Her embraces are weaker but none less loving as she kisses them each for the last time. They kiss her far more, her cheeks, her forehead, telling her that they’ll just be downstairs while she sleeps and they’ll be up once the kids have gone.

“Are you sure you don’t want any-”

“No meds,” she tells Ava in a soft voice. “Your father’s here, I’ll be fine.”

Ava bites her lip. “Mom..”

Oliver waits and says nothing. They need this moment. It makes him remember the very first time he sat at a bedside and watched his wife fall in love with their daughter.

“My baby girl,” Felicity whispers, her forehead pressing to Ava’s. “My beautiful, beautiful girl.”

“Love you, mom,” Ava murmured.

“I love you. Go on, I’ll be fine,” she repeats.

Ava doesn’t leave until she’s satisfied she’s hugged her mother enough. Even now, in her retirement, she’s beautiful, and Oliver can’t help but smile at his daughter. This is all about Felicity, though, she has no eyes for him. Time will come later for that, though instinctively he reaches for her when she walks past him. She takes a breath when she leaves the room that reminds him of her teenage years when she would always wait until she left a room to cry.

Then they’re alone, he and his wife. Oliver and Felicity, as they always have been.

He approaches her with a melancholy smile, hands in his pockets.

“Now?” she whispers to him.

He sits down, taking her hand, and he feels choked up in the way that he has since he watched her get sicker and sicker, then better, then worse. “Are you ready?” he asks her, making sure that she’s certain. This isn’t something that they can take back. This is the most final decision she’ll ever make and he has to support what she chooses.

“I am,” she whispers, and she’s looking at him and he’s glad he’s there. One hand holds hers, the other strokes through her hair.

“The kids…do you want them here?”

She shakes her head. “I don’t want them to see it,” she tells him. “You’re here,” her grip on his hand tightens, and the fact that they can feel it is everything. He raises her hand to his lips and kisses it, she releases a breath as if she’s been waiting for that touch all day. “You’re here, that’s all I want.”

“Of course I’m here,” he whispers. “I’ve been here the whole time. Even when you couldn’t see me.”

I was there when they told you that you had cancer. I was there when baby Oliver was born. I was there for every chemo session. I was there for every surgery. I was there every time you were in pain. I was there every time the kids were scared. Every time you were scared. Every time you reached out for me. I was there. I was always there.

“I’ve missed you,” she whispers, bringing her hand to his face.

“I’ve noticed,” he replies, breaking into a small smile. “I said not noticed, right?”

“You’re so young,” she breathes.

“You will be soon,” he continues to smile.

“How does this work?” she asks him in a whisper.

He keeps his eyes on her, his fingers combing through her hair as he had done a thousand times. “You just close your eyes and go to sleep, then you follow me,” he tells her. “It won’t hurt. It’s just like you’ve done a thousand times.”

“It always makes me tired when you do that,” she murmurs, and he knows that. That’s why he does it.

“Last chance to call for the kids,” he whispers.

“I’ve said my goodbyes,” she tells him. Her eyes slip closed, and that last chance passes. “We raised a good family.”

“A beautiful family,” he agrees, moving closer to her, his breath coasting over her ear as he speaks. “It’s their time now. You’ve been so brave for so long, you fought so hard.”

“I can’t fight anymore,” she says, her voice growing softer.

“You don’t have to,” he assures her. “There’s nothing left to fight, Felicity. It’s time to be at peace now.”

“I’m glad you came,” she breathes out.

“No one ever goes alone,” he tells her. “We’re all here waiting for you, sweetheart. It’s time to come home.”

“Okay,” she says, her grip on his hand slackening.

He leans over to press a final, loving kiss to her forehead, and listens to her breathing slow and fade. Her body ceases, the pain that consumed her finally stopping, and then there’s a rush in the room only he can feel and she takes his hand again. He wants to cry, when he looks upon her first time all over again, all blonde hair and glasses and this time when he stands before her and pulls his arms around her she can really feel him.

Oliver Queen passed four years ago. Felicity has survived that long without him. He was with her for every single day of it. He never left her side.

Later, while she’s adjusting to the realities of being a soul rather than a person - and hers is beautiful - Oliver checks in on the rest of his family. He watches as his three children cry together in their bedroom while Felicity’s still form lays in the bed, peacefully curled on her side towards him. He watches them take their breaths but they don’t dry their tears before they quietly beckon their adult children into another room and break the news to them. One by one, the families curl into the living room, toddlers in laps, the older grandchildren who understand crying more painstakingly until the room where all his children learned to walk is filled with the sniffles of a family united in grief.

These people are his children, his children’s children, and his grandchild’s child. Four generations of a family were so briefly beneath one roof until the matriarch of the Queen household passed earlier that evening. They worry that she was alone. Ava shares a breathtaking moment with her daughter that makes Oliver’s heart clench as she tries to remember if she last says ‘love you’ or ‘I love you’ last, and Oliver wants to tell her that it was enough, that she knew, and that it was perfect.

He’ll be with them, as he always is, but right now they have each other and he finally has his wife’s soul at his side again. As he goes to leave, a stillness in the room finds him and he watches his great-grandchild’s head turning with his movement. He read once that babies are susceptible to spirit forms, and he leans over the infant as he passes, pressing a kiss to the forehead of the child named in his honour, and watches him turn to a childish giggle.

The room falls silent, all the adults looking to the infant and trying to figure out what he is looking at what he is laughing at. Oliver feels an arm on his and Felicity is there. He turns to see her, his arm drawing her against his side.

“God, I miss them already,” Felicity whispers into his neck, and he can see why. It’s overwhelming, seeing all of them together in this room and knowing that they created this. They’re responsible for each and every person here. This is the magic they created with fifty-six years of love. This is their legacy.

“You’ll see them every day,” he knows, and kisses the side of her head. “We’ll be here for every second of it.”


	27. She Broke Me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anonymous said:
> 
> i have a prompt! pregnant olicity and increased sexual drive ;)

Oliver came into the foundry one morning with a definite limp in his step, causing Diggle to raise his eyebrow slightly. He didn’t appear to be in any major pain, there was no sign of blood or grave injury, so he continued with where he was sorting through some of the simpler programs running on the monitors and watched Oliver limp his way over to a chair.

Realising he was caught, Oliver stood just behind the chair, leaning on it for support with one hand while another rather desperately clutched a bag of ice.

“Knee giving you trouble?” Diggle asked casually.

“No,” Oliver murmured.

“You got another injury last night?” he asked, straightening slightly.

“No,” Oliver repeated. His eyes flickered around a little, and Diggle realised that he was actually nervous, shifting his weight between each leg. “Is uh…” he cleared his throat. “Is Felicity here?”

Was that a stammer in his voice?

“No, she called about an hour ago, said she’d be busy until tonight…” Diggle said, breaking off with a frown. “Are you okay, man?”

Oliver’s face sank into sheer relief, and he all but threw himself down into the chair and placed the bag of ice he was holding over his groin. His head dropped back as he held it there, releasing a long, loud groan.

Diggle didn’t move. “…damn, what did she do to you?”

“She _broke_ me,” Oliver half-whined, wiping a hand over his face. “She broke me,” he repeated, with perhaps the saddest expression Diggle had ever seen on a man.

“Dare I ask?”

“Hormones are….they’re evil, Digg. How do you survive them?”

“You just have to ride it out.”

“I can’t ride anything out. I’m _raw_.”

“Didn’t need to know that much.”

“I physically hurt. My dick’s….sad. It’s sad, Digg. She made it sad.”

“Let me get this straight, the love of your life, who is carrying your child, has made your dick _sad_?” Diggle laughed.

“It’s not funny!” Oliver half-shouted at him, pointing at him accusingly. “You said I’d enjoy the hormones! You said it would be the best sex of my life.”

“Was it?”

“Well…yes, but at this cost? I need a nap. I need some food, and some sleep, and a shower, and possibly a new dick.”

Diggle went to laugh, but then his phone rang. He raised an eyebrow. “It’s Felicity.”

Oliver’s eyes widened in horror. He stood up, still clutching the ice to his groin. “Don’t tell her I’m here.”

Diggle thought for a second. “I’m going to tell her.”

Oliver tried for an angry expression. “I will turn you into a human pincushion of arrows if you tell her where I am,” he threatened.

Diggle just smiled knowingly, answering his phone. “Hey, Felicity.”

Oliver’s voice dropped to a loud whisper, but was no less frantic. “I will hurt you.”

He just continued with his phone call. “I’m at the foundry.”

Oliver swallowed, pure fear in his eyes. “Please, Digg….please…”

“Yeah, Oliver’s here with me.”

“…I hate you. You’re the worst friend ever. It’s your fault I’m only going to have the ball capacity to have one child.”

\---

He ran.

Well, he tried to. But he had to go home eventually.

Three hours later he trailed into their apartment with his feet dragging beneath him. He knew she was angry, because she hadn’t called him or text him at all. And God help him, he missed her now.

“Felicity?” he asked with a small wince, trying to hide his limp as he followed the sound of plates banging around.

She was unloading the dishwasher, placing the plates down loudly, and he winces. “So, what is it? Am I just not attractive now that I’m getting fat?” she asked, not even looking at him.

He can hear the tears in her voice, knows she’s been crying even though she wouldn’t face him, and he hates himself like he never has done before. “Felicity…”

“It’s normal, I guess,” she shrugged, slamming the dishwasher closed and starting to put the plates up in the cupboard. “I mean, you’re Oliver Queen, you dated supermodels and now you’re stuck with this fat wife who has stretch marks and can only sleep in weird positions and I get it, Oliver, I get it, but can you maybe be a decent guy about it and not freaking run away from me?”

He rushed at her then, his chest pressing against her back and pulling her back into his arms with one arm curled around her stomach. She was twenty-two weeks now, and the swell of her stomach is very obvious with her tiny frame, but it’s not ugly, it’s not a hindrance, and no matter how bad she made it sound in that moment that is his child growing inside her.

“Don’t ever say that about yourself again,” he muttered, his lips pressed against her ear.

“You ran away from me,” she said pitifully, as if she were holding back tears again.

“It’s not like that,” he assured her, but she tried to wriggle away from him. “No, stop that, I need you to listen to me for a moment.”

He let her move only enough to turn around, and she folded her arms. It was adorable how she did that now, her her arms rested over her bump, but this time her head dipped down and she wouldn’t look at him.

“I love you,” he told her, but she didn’t move. “Hey, listen,” he told her, raising her chin gently with his fingertip so she was meeting her eyes. “I love you, Felicity. All of you.”

“Well, there’s a lot more of me to love now, isn’t there,” she muttered bitterly.

“You’re having my baby, Felicity,” he reminded her, his voice a breathless wonder as it always was when he proclaimed that fact. “You’re always the most beautiful woman in the world to me, and seals the deal. Do you know how lucky I feel?”

“Not lucky enough to sleep with your wife,” she deadpanned, and he looked down guiltily before looking back at her.

“Not…this much.” Her eyebrows shoot up in hurt and she shakes her head. “I just…I’m trying to say this without sounding like a jerk.”

“Then don’t bother,” she muttered, and pushed past him.

This time he let her move, but she was barely halfway across the room before he turned and called out to her. “I can’t keep having sex,” he blurted out, screwing up his face after. “I want to, because I love you, and you’re gorgeous all the time, and there’s something incredibly sexy about these new curves and your confidence and damn, the hormones…I just…” he tried to form the idea in his hands and gave up, dropping them to his side in defeat. “Felicity, I’m half broken. I’m raw and chafed in places you can’t even imagine.”

She stared at him across the room, tears on her cheeks but at least she was looking at him now. He took that as a good sign and he stepped towards her, putting his hands on her arms, stroking them lightly and not looking her. It was his turn to look ashamed now.

“Diggle kept building up the pregnancy sex and the hormones and then…God, I can’t keep up, and really, you don’t know how much it kills me to admit that. Your body’s so responsive and it’s…it’s like test driving an Aston Martin,” he tried to explain. “You know you don’t have it for long, and you want to get the most out of it and you want to rev the engine and take the sharp corners way too fast, but then it’s too fast and it’s such a powerful car and even though it’s the most beautiful thing you’ve ever been in, you have to admit when you’re beat.”

She was still crying silently, and his heart sank. Maybe the car analogy wasn’t the best one to use, but at least it was something and it was the only way he could explaining.

“I’m sorry, I-”

“I’m the most beautiful thing you’ve ever been in?” she asked tearfully.

“Of course you are,” he sagged slightly, looking at her with emotion radiating from his blue eyes.

“I’m your Aston Martin?”

“Custom made,” he nodded. “Completely unique.”

She swallowed and drew in a shaking breath. When she released it, it followed with a sob and his heart broke at her tiny voice. “Was Digg right? Did I really make your dick sad?”

“Felicity…” he drew her into his arms completely, holding her against his chest. Her arms went around his waist, and between them was the swell of their growing child. “Our sex is pretty mind-blowing already, these pregnancy hormones are…insanely hot, but..I need a nap,” he told her as she started to shudder against him. “I need some kind of recovery period, because I am not eighteen anymore and I…are you…are you laughing right now?”

“I’m sorry,” she said, bringing her head up with tearful laughter painted over her face. “I don’t want to laugh, but…”

“Hormones,” he finished for her.

“I didn’t realise I was being that…demanding,” she looked at him apologetically. “Why didn’t you just say no to me?”

“That would have been rude,” he said dumbly.

“And running away wasn’t?”

“Okay, you have a point there,” he nodded with a deep sigh. “But don’t ever think you aren’t attractive to me, he told her, bringing his hands up to cup her face, his forehead pressing to hers even though he had to stoop. “You were beautiful before pregnancy, and you’re beautiful now,” he assured her. “I mean, look at you,” he half laughed, dropping hands down to frame the soft curve of her stomach. “That’s my baby in there. My kid. That’s…we made this, Felicity,” his voice filled with excitement, and finally a content smile graced her face.

“I’m sorry I’m so crazy lately,” she winced.

“No, never apologise,” he told her.

Somehow, whichever one of them started it, their lips met, and met, and met, until they were backing her against the couch and Oliver was overwhelmed with the taste of her, the feel of her, the scent of her and–

“Ahh!” he pulled back with a hiss, hunching over her with his head dipped.

“Oh my god, are you okay?” she rushed, sitting back up quickly.

“I can’t even get a boner without feeling like I’m getting punched in the balls,” he whined pathetically, taking a deep breath to try and calm himself down while she burst out laughing. “It’s not funny!”

“It’s a little funny,” she giggled, bringing her hands to his face. “But you’ve got a bigger problem now.”

“There is no bigger problem than my wife’s hormones breaking my dick,” he mumbled, raising his eyes to hers. “Remind me again why I love you?” he joked.

“Something about me growing your child and being better than an Aston Martin,” she said offhandedly. “But now you’ve turned me on, and something needs to be done about it.”

He considered it. He really considered it. He considered spending the rest of the week with frozen peas on his groin if it meant tearing off those yoga pants and burying himself inside her, but then dipped his head, kissing her collarbone in a way that made her moan deliciously and made his dick throb.

“Can’t I just go down on you instead?” he asked, a desperate plea in his tone.

“Two orgasms,” she named her conditions.

“Three,” he countered. “And I get an ice bath after.”


	28. Blast

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> lovebeasunflowerhannie said:
> 
> “So nearly got to dance with you… Damn bomb ruining it. Ruined my dress too. And my arm. My arm hurts Oliver.” “I know Felicity I know. I’m sorry. I’ll make it up to you. Just don’t move. Or scare me like that again.” I know this is a long prompt. Please don’t hate me. But I love your writing and I really want to see where you’d take this. Xoxo

The gala was long since over, but Oliver and Felicity had yet to leave the site. It had tempted fate to plan the evening so intricately, it was far too likely after that that they’d be interrupted, and so they had been. Between her job as CEO of Queen Incorporated and his Mayoral campaign, they were gathering more enemies than the Arrow could count. However, the situation had been more under control than they’d imagined it would be, and they were now seated in the back of the last remaining ambulance at the scene.

The red and blue flashing lights reflected off Felicity’s face, the police taking over beyond the doors of the ambulance, but Oliver eased back into the fold-out seat at her side.

“Hey, how’s your arm?” he asked her gently, brushing her dishevelled hair behind her ear.

“It hurts,” she mumbled, giving a heavy sigh from the gurney as she looked over at him. “You okay?” she asked with a frown.

“I’m fine,” he murmured without thinking, all his attention on her. “They’re going to take you to the hospital, the drivers are just arranging to get out past the police blockades,” he explained to her.

“And you?” she asked drowsily.

“I’m coming with you,” he said, as if the idea of anything else were insane.

“Okay, good,” she said, leaning back with her eyes closed. He worried about her pain levels again, and frowned, but her face broke into a small smile as she reached out until he gripped her hand, kissing it as soon as he’d captured it.

“So, I nearly got to dance with you,” she pointed out.

He laughed, resting his forehead against her hand. “I don’t dance,” he told her, his voice teasing.

“I would have.”

“What makes you so sure?” he asked her.

“You were falling for my amazing charm,” she insisted.

He bit his lip to keep from laughing. God, he loved this woman. “Is that so?”

“Yeah, but the damn bomb ruined it,” she grumbled. “It ruined my dress too.”

“Shame,” he smiled, looking at the tears and burns in the fabric. “But I’d see damage to the dress than damage on you,” he told her.

She smiled at his words, then her face overtook with a scowl. “And my arm…” she added. “My arm hurts, Oliver.”

He kissed her wrist. “I know, sweetheart,” he murmured. “The morphine should start working quickly,” he assured her. She just hummed, trying to turn on the gurney towards him and he steadied her. “Whoa, whoa, stay there, I’m not going anywhere,” he told her.

The slowness which which the medication was working on her concerned him, but he was certain that her adrenaline wasn’t helping matters. He held her hand a little tighter when she settled, still plagued with the image of her flying across the room when the bomb had gone off. She was lucky to have only broken her arm.

“I’ll make it up to you,” he told her, when her eyes closed again. She rolled her eyelids back up to look at him. “One dance, unconditional. Anywhere, any time,” he promised her. “But you have to stay still when the doctors take over, and you can’t ever care me like that again,” he made her swear.

She nodded slightly, turning the hand that he held against his face and using her fingers to scratch lightly at the stubble on his cheek. He leaned into her touch with a sigh.

“Is that a yes?” he asked her.

“I choose our wedding day,” she murmured, leaning back again and watching his face switch to something more shocked. “I knew you were going to ask me tonight, you’re really bad at hiding things from me,” she told him with a knowing smile.

He breaths out a chuckle against her hand holding it against him, with a firm kiss to her palm. “There goes my big surprise. How long have you known?”

“I found the ring last week,” she confessed tiredly, and he knew then that the drugs were finally taking effect. “So I want my dance, Mr. Mayor,” she half slurred.

He was fairly certain she wouldn’t remember a word of this, and now he can see her in less pain he’s watching her fondly. “You can have anything you want, Felicity,” he whispered, leaning to kiss her forehead while she hummed, just as the paramedic got into the back of the ambulance.

“Anything?” she asked in a slur.

“Anything at all?”

“Can we borrow his uniform for some fun? ‘Cause I had this fantasy once—”

“Felicity! Not right now!”


	29. One Day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> acheaptrickandacheesyoneline said:
> 
> Happy fluffy prompts after all that angst! Olicity and their car breaking down on a their road trip but it’s night and the milky way is clear and hey, look, meteor shower!

Their car broke down barely one-hundred miles after they left Vegas, just a small fraction into the next leg of their journey. Part of their road trip had needed to include a trip to see Felicity’s mother, and her excitement over their relationship had added a sudden seriousness to it. It was easy to handle when it was just the two of them in their own bubble of the world, but listening to Donna ask them about their relationship and worse - what their plans were, and it had given them a small sense of panic, because they weren’t worrying about the future.

Except they completely were.

When the car broke down they’d managed to push the truck off the road into a lay-by parking area along a stretch of beach. In lieu of wanting to spend the night crammed in the car, they were forced to wait for the service truck to come out to them by sitting on the beach, side by side. Their shoulders brushed as they sat with their legs pulled up to their chests.

The silence only lasted about ten minutes. Felicity had never been one to keep the silences but this was one she wasn’t able to break. Since they’d left her mother’s she’d been afraid of what she might say, afraid of anything that might spook Oliver into the startling realisation that yes, running away to discover the real Oliver Queen was all well and good, but did he realise that he’d chosen in that to spend a life with her?

It was Oliver that broke the silence, his arm sliding around her shoulders and pulling her into him. “You know, I hear this is actually a romantic gesture sometimes.”

She arched an eyebrow. “A broken down car in the middle of the night?”

“Stranded on a moonlit beach,” he corrected, gesturing around them. “The calm water, the moon reflecting off it, the sand, the secrecy…”

“Someone’s been Googling romance,” she teased him a little.

He pulled a face. “I want to be good at romance,” he murmured. “I want to…be good at all of that. For you.”

She lifted her head from his shoulder, but he was staring out over the water. “Is this because of what my mom was talking about? Because she was joking about the Vegas wedding, you know that, right?”

“I know,” he said with a lingering smile on his lips. “It just got me thinking. Logically, that’s one of the next steps. This is the point of a relationship I always bolted and messed up on purpose. Now that I’m with someone I don’t want to run from, it made me think about what I want for that next step,” he told her.

He was good at that now, being open with her. It made her rest her head back on his shoulder, her arm looping around his to grasp his hand. “So, what did you decide?” she asked.

“Nothing big,” he muttered. “The big decisions are…”

“Scary as hell?” she finished for him, and he huffed out a laugh against the top of her head.

“Pretty much.”

“Okay, so what about the small things?” she asked him. He hesitated on answering, and she gripped his hand tighter. “Come on, this is the real Oliver Queen we’re uncovering, right? What are the little things he dreamed of? We can figure those out, then we’ll fill in with the big decisions later.”

He closed his eyes with a long breath. He did that a lot, it was something she’d come to associate with this new Oliver, when he tried to shut out the world and focus purely on what he craved in that moment, shutting out the old Oliver when he tried to invade. “I just…think it would be nice…having someone to come home to at the end of the day…in a real house with collected things in,” he started.

“Yeah,” she agreed, a sigh of relief escaping her when he finally began to trust her with these details. “Like…a kiss when you walk in the door,” she said, hoping that her addition would make him see these were things he could have now.

“A family,” he mused. “People happy to see that you’re home.”

“Someone to curl up with at night,” she agreed.

“Mmm,” he turned to bury his face into her hair. “I have that already…someone who can just make you forget about everything.”

“Someone who eases you through the bad days,” she added.

“Someone who could cook, that’d be a nice,” he nods.

“Oh, and a back rub,” she listed.

“God, that’s a fantastic idea,” Oliver sighed, as his thoughts strayed to the tense muscles in his shoulders from the last four hours of driving.

Felicity nodded against him. “I think I could sacrifice the good cooking if I could get a decent shoulder massage,” she considered.

“That’s good to know, I can’t cook to save my life,” he laughed.

It was perhaps the most honest they’d been with each other about their future, and whether it was that admission or the growing chill in the midnight air that caused her to shiver he wasn’t sure, but either way he shuffled around in the sand until he was sitting behind her. Opening up his jacket, he drew his legs up either side of her and wrapped the jacket around the two of them. His arms wrapped around her to settle over her stomach and she brought her arms up to entwine with him, no longer shuddering from the cold now that he was blocking it on all sides.

“I think we’d be good at it,” he told her boldly.

“Good at what?” he asked.

“Life,” he sighed, shifting in his sandy seat. “We might not ever get it completely away from the Starling City life, but…maybe we can compromise. I think we…I was thinking a lot today about the life I wanted, but specifically, the life I wanted with you.”

“Do I fit in that life?” she asked quietly.

He kissed the side of her head. “You are that life,” he told her. “Everything else needs to fit with you. You’re non-negotiable.”

She didn’t hide her smile, but she did stay quiet. It was something he needed.

He took a deep breath and carried on. This was certainly easier when she was facing the same direction as she was and she wasn’t turning to look at him every few seconds. “We’ll fight over what colour we’re going to paint the den, but we’ll agree on yellow and then you’ll go out and pick blue anyway,” she laughed at this. “The kitchen will always be tidy but only because we’ll secretly be too afraid it. We’ll have all these utensils that we could use in fifty ways to do other things, like I could make a decent arrow out of them and you could probably use them for computer parts, but god knows how they’re supposed to help us cook a turkey for Thanksgiving. We’ll try to cook together, though, even though it’s easier to call take out and we’ll manage the easy stuff, chicken, spaghetti…simple, but homely.”

She was nodding along with his words, a smile on her lips. In all honesty, it was far too easy to picture them making a mess in the kitchen. Neither of them were all that domesticated when it came to cooking. Maybe they should take a class together. John once told them it was like leaving kids alone with a blended, and that’s how they ended up eating most meals at varying takeout places.

“We’ll have a big yard, too,” he told her. “One with real space, not the kind with a fence where the neighbours are looking in every ten minutes. There will be lots of trees and plants, but not many flowers. And at the end of it we’ll have a bench where we’ll sit and watch the kids running around.”

“Kids?”

“Oh yeah,” he nodded. “Three of them. Two boys and little girl. The boys both have my hair and dashing smile but the girl looks so much like you, and they’ll all have your eyes because…well, because I want them to,” he decided. “In the summer, we’ll spend the whole day outside. The kids will be playing and you’ll be messing around on your tablet, your head in my lap. I won’t keep up with the coding but I’ll stroke your hair while you work, and you’ll probably doze off for a while but you’ll wake up when a football gets thrown in your lap. We’ll end up joining in at that point because ever after all the years we won’t be able to back down from a challenge. You’ll challenge the kids too, you won’t let them win for the sake of it, you’ll let them earn the victory. It’s what makes you brilliant.”

She made a small noise as if she didn’t quite agree with that, but he ignored it.

“And when they’re too tired to run around anymore we’ll take them indoors and carry them up to bed. We’ll tuck them in, kiss them goodnight, and then it’s our time. A beer or a glass of wine or two, and we’ll go off to bed too. The sex is amazing, of course,” at this she burst out with a laugh and he joined her for a few seconds. “But it’s more than that. It’s the opportunity to lie together and not be disturbed by anything other than ‘mom, I had a bad dream’ or ‘dad, I want a glass of water’. And we’ll be really good at the mom and dad part, because we wouldn’t let a single bad thing happen to those kids.”

“Wow,” she smiled softly.

“You up for any of that?” he asked.

“Yeah, sign me up,” she waved her hand slightly. “All of it.”

He tilted his head a little to see her face. “Based on the fact that the sex would continue to be amazing?”

She swatted his shoulder blindly behind her but she got him right on target anyway. He caught her hand in his afterwards. “Based on the fact that I don’t think I could picture that with anyone else,” she corrected him.

He nodded at this, still watching her face, only now she was watching him back. “We’d be married too, I left that part out.”

“We would?”

“Yeah, but I’ll have to ask you four times before you say yes,” he told her. “Once in a meeting, once in the middle of the grocery story, and once over breakfast…and…” he trailed off.

“Forgotten already?” she teased him.

He shrugged again. “I haven’t decided on it yet. I guess that must be the one you say yes to,” he smirked.

“Guess so,” she agreed quietly, leaning back against his chest with a small gap. “Oh wow, Oliver…” she said, directing his gaze up.

“What are we-….oh.”

The sky above them was filled with light, stealing away their attention as they took in the bright display of meteors above them, streaks of light covering the navy landscape. Felicity felt lips at her forehead and felt a wave of contentment run through her. “I think you were right about this being romantic,” she murmured.

“Good,” he dead-panned. “Because it’s really hard to Google how to make a meteor shower happen at the end of a romantic gesture.”


	30. Regret is a bitter wine (but wine is sweeter than poison)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> aussieforgood said: Prompt (this is a weird one but my brain can be a weird place sometimes): As things begin to get really serious between Oliver and Felicity, Oliver gets cold feet and starts behaving like “Ollie” minus the cheating of course.  
> imacrispian said: Euuuh hiw fucking rude of you ??!? You can’t fo this, you can’t stop a fic like that and live me hanging. Tell me he run to that door and apologised and made love to her and put the ring bavk on !! Okkk I have a serious heart condition. Ahaha more:)
> 
> Anonymous said: Just read regret one…. I hate you I hate you so much… (Not really lol),HOW DARE YOU JUST TAKE MY HEART AND CRUSH IT INTO TINY BITS OF DUST TO FEED YOIR SHARKS!!! I NEED THIS FIXED I NEED OLIVER TO FIX HIS SHIT AND GO AFTER HIS HAPPY ENDING!!!
> 
> Anonymous said: could you write a part 2 to the regret is bitter wine? Maybe what oliver does to win felicity back or something like that?
> 
> Anonymous said: Regret is bitter than Wine destroyed my life 

He knows he’s fucked up when he finds her sitting on the couch waiting for him, wide awake at four in the morning, with her engagement ring on the coffee table in front of her.

“Felicity…”

She sits back as he steps into the room, closing the door behind him. When he doesn’t finish that sentence, she rolls her hand as if encouraging him. “Go on, roll of another excuse. Make it a good one this time, though, the ‘working late on the campaign’ is getting so old it’s actually a bit insulting.”

“Felicity, I’m-”

“Sorry? Yeah, sure you are.” At that, she stood up, going to turn away from him but stopping with an irritated expression. “You know what, if you’re so determined to go back to that lifestyle, I don’t know why you even bothered coming home at all,” she says bitterly.

This time he moves towards her. “What do you mean by that?” he demanded.

“This!” she gestured at him. “The coming home in the middle of the night - well, morning now - stinking of alcohol and a seedy club, sneaking around again and you were on the news, Oliver! You were filmed when you were urinating in an alley. The alley beside your opponent’s house, no less. Tell me, was that planned, or are you really just that unfortunately unlucky?”

“It’s not like that,” he tries to tell her, his voice dipping in tone because really, he has no excuse for her.

“Yes, it is,” she slumps in defeat, his heart aches for her, to be closer to her, but she won’t allow it. Each step he takes forward is another step back from her. “What exactly are you trying to do, Oliver? Are you trying to make me leave?”

“No,” he chokes out, shaking his head. “No, never.”

“Then what?” she asks, and her voice breaks. “Do I make you that unhappy that you need to go back to being him?”

“Who?” he asks with a frown.

“Ollie!”

He stills completely, his eyes entirely focused on this small woman he has chosen to love. And yes, he chose her. He chose to love her. He chose to fall for her every day. He chose to propose to her and ask her to be his wife, and he’d wanted her to say yes and he’d been ecstatic when she had said yes.

And he’s fucked it up.

Like he always does.

He falls into the chair behind him, his head resting in the palm of his hands and his eyes fall on the engagement ring he’d spent three hours choosing for her two months ago.

“I’m such a shit,” he breathes out.

“Yeah, and the rest,” she half spits out, still on the other side of the room. “Don’t you see what you’re doing, Oliver?”

“I know I’ve done a lot-”

“No, not what you’ve done to yourself,” she cut him off. “What you’re doing to me. I spend every night getting a kiss goodnight and then you’re disappearing off to god knows where while I’m sat here wondering where you are, what you’re doing…who you’re with…”

His head snaps up with a furious shake of his head. “No. No, Felicity, I’d never-”

“Oh, so you do have a limit?” she says, and the guilt drops into his stomach.

She starts to step closer to him then, he hears her thick socks shuffling across the carpet. She remains just out of his reach though, his hands twitching but he doesn’t move them.

“This isn’t supposed to be who you are anymore,” she tells him quietly.

“I don’t want to be him anymore.”

“Then why are you doing this?” she challenges him. “Why are you trying to push me away? I thought you loved-”

“I do. I do love you,” he insists. He can’t even look at her when she says it.

“Is this how you show me that?” she asks.

He can’t answer, again. He has no answer.

“I’m scared,” he whispers down at the ground.

“What did you say?”

“I’m scared,” he repeats, louder as he looks up at her. “This - commitment - it’s…new for me.”

“That doesn’t make this okay,” she shakes her head. “If you’re scared of this, we slow it down, you don’t just leave me behind every night so you can go back to your old life. That’s not fair.”

“I never meant to-”

“But you did. You asked me to marry you and then you disappeared on me.”

“Felicity, please-”

“I fell in love with Oliver, not Ollie.”

The words sting so badly he gasps, looking up as she moves for the ring. He thinks she’s going to pick it up, but instead she just pushes it further towards him. He hears her breath hitch as she straightens up, a small sniffle as she turns away.

“So why don’t you take this and decide which man you’d rather be,” she tells him in a tight voice, moving away to the bedroom and closing the door behind her.

Yeah, he’s fucked up.

\---

He isn’t there when she wakes up. Disappointment doesn’t cover it. This is soul-destroying.

Her ring is still on the coffee table where she left it, where she left him, but he is gone and didn’t even hear him leave. That’s not the surprising part, of course. He can be stealthy when he needs to, but she was so sure he’d stay. So sure he’d fight for them.

He hasn’t.

She tries to push her emotions aside, to tell herself that this is clearly for the best and if the thought of being with her permanently is so frightening he goes back to the branded ‘Ollie’ days, then does she even want to be with him?

Of course she does. If he walked through the door right then she’ll run to him. She always would.

But she wasn’t expecting this silence.

With her coffee in hand, she sits on the couch and turns on the news. She lets it play in the background, a habit she picked up from Oliver that she isn’t ready to shake just yet, and she stares at her engagement ring.

When she first went to bed last night, she’d lain there waiting to hear him walking down the hall, waiting for that knock on the door and his whispered apology. She’d waited there for him to come to his senses and come apologise to her, draw her into his arms and start to erase the last two months of disrespect.

When he doesn’t, she’d told herself that he’d delegated himself to the couch, and she’ll find him there under the thin blanket they used to watch movies under and after an awkward exchange they’ll talk and start again.

When he isn’t there, she doesn’t have anything to tell herself other than that he’s gone.

She asked him to choose, and he chose Ollie.

Then the key scrapes in the lock. His key. He’s the only one who doesn’t have trouble with the lock.

Then there he is. Suit and tie. That grey suit he wore in another life on their first date.

His eyes are defeated. Worn.

She wants to question him but the television steals away her focus.

“Breaking news this morning after mayoral candidate Oliver Queen called an emergency press conference on the steps of City Hall this morning…”

She drags her eyes to the television - that explains the suit, at least - and hears him move to stand behind the couch as she listens to the televised version of Oliver giving his speech.

“ _Good morning, thank you for coming on such short notice_ ,” he says, clearing his throat. “ _With the elections only a month away, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about my campaign for mayor, and not just what it means for this city, but also the impact it has on me and my life. This campaign has thrown my life into a great deal of focus, and I have tried my best not to deal with that level of public attention the way that I did when I was younger. That is…something I have failed at_.”

She hears him behind her, the shuffle of fabric as he slides his hands into his pockets, but she doesn’t look at him. She looks at TV-him.

“ _My family have been my greatest support for this campaign, and I recognise now with my behaviour I have compromised that affection. They deserve better. While I was ready to do my duty to this city, I want to prioritise my duty to my family. This campaign has not inspired the best behaviour on my part, and I want to do better. With that in mind, this morning I am officially withdrawing my candidacy_.”

The crowd of reports uproars with questions, but Felicity gets to her feet. She turns to him slowly and sees that resigned expression on his face as he sheds away the layers this campaign has added to him, and she remains silent, waiting for him to speak.

“Felicity…I know sorry is never going to be enough for what I’ve put you through, but I am so…very sorry,” he breathes.

“You resigned.”

“This campaign doesn’t bring out the best in me,” he shrugs. “I put the city before you too many times, I won’t do it again.”

She’s silent, but she approaches him, slides her arms around him and presses her face to his chest. He apologises again and holds her against him, and for a while that’s all they do; embrace. How long has it been since they’ve done this?

“Don’t do that to me again, okay?” she whispers.

“Never,” he promises. “You deserve better than me, Felicity…I…I spent too long running from that because I thought you needed better than me, and i still think that, but…I need to start seeing that as an inspiration to be the better man you deserve.” He presses his forehead to hers. “Don’t forgive me for this. This was unforgivable but…please, give me another chance?”

She steps away from him, takes the engagement ring from the table and places it in his palm. He looks dejected for a moment, seeing this as her letting him go, and goes to speak with misted eyes when she cuts him off. “You need to give this back to me when you’re ready,” she tells him with a firm nod. “Right now, you need to be the version of Oliver you want to be, and if that’s this better man you think I deserve then we can find him. Together. But we can’t force marriage on top of that,” she breathes out. “One day you can give me this ring back, but I want you to promise me that you will be ready when you do, okay?”

His sigh of relief is one that overtakes his whole body, and she finds herself back in his arms - where she’s wanted to be for the last few months. “Okay,” he agrees, his voice small. But it’s enough.

As long as he fights, it’ll always be enough.


	31. The Arrow vs. The Common Cold

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anonymous said:Can you write an olicity fic where Oliver has a cold? Thanks :)

Oliver Queen does not get colds. But when he does get colds, Felicity maybe guilty loves him a little less.

It starts as a cold. In fact, it still is a cold, it’s just been vastly blown out of proportion. Man flu is an urban legend she refuses to believe in. Thea starts it by coughing one day after socialising with some old school friends of hers, and the next day Laurel was spluttering across the lair. Four days later, Diggle was caught discreetly wiping a running nose, and after that, he’s desperate to escape his own home after both his wife and daughter come down with the same sickness.

Oliver does not get sick. Ever.

His body is a finely tuned machine. He exercises constantly, eats far too healthily for Felicity to keep up with. Sometimes he gets aching muscles or a headache if he’s worked too hard, but sick? Never. He only coughs when there’s fire nearby, doesn’t sweat unless it’s from working out, doesn’t sneeze unless someone passes cinnamon under his nose, and his nose didn’t run, ever.

He doesn’t get colds. He doesn’t get fevers. He doesn’t get the flu.

Well, he didn’t before. But since they decided to travel the world and be normal people without hardcore vigilantism, apparently he does.

She thinks it might be karma, because he’s spent the past two weeks initiating large glares at his sick team mates, and now Felicity is tasked with shielding the same responses against him while taking care of him. Because she’s his girlfriend, and that’s apparently a rule that she has to take care of him.

She tries to argue that they’re not married, so the ‘in sickness and in health’ doesn’t count, but he looks at her with those glassy, puppy-dog eyes of his and she’s now confined to their bedroom, playing around on her tablet while he lay face down in the pillow – for a lack of a better word – dying.

Because Oliver Queen doesn’t get colds. He gets man flu.

If he had the ability to communicate in actual words and not just pained groans, he’ll have been able to voice his debate of suicide. He’s sure he hasn’t done anything to deserve this illness, but now he has a second heartbeat radiating in his skull – either that or his brain is about to explode – and death seems like a good option Death is easy, peaceful, and if he had the strength he’ll have put an arrow in his own head.

Occasionally he lifts his head from the pillow to look around, but his eyes are having trouble focusing so he just mumbles something that sounds more like “lisy” instead of “Felicity” thanks to his blocked sinuses and hides beneath the covers again. His mouth is dry, his throat even more so. He’s almost tempted to cry, but that might have used the last of the moisture in his body and he’s not willing to risk that. Moving isn’t an option either. In fact, all he can manage to do is breathe…very gently…

–

“Oliver, come on, get up.”

“No.”

“This is ridiculous.”

“I can’t.”

“Yes, you can.”

“I’m dying.”

Dying is the theme of the day, and dying is something that Oliver is clearly not going to survive. It’s midday and he’s curled up on the bathroom floor, his head plastered the tiled floor before it’s cooler than anything else he’s touched in the last twenty four hours. His skin is burning and even the air conditioning can’t help him. The only visible sign that it’s been turned on is that Felicity’s wearing the world’s thickest sweater.

He’d wanted to stay in bed, but as Felicity has become quite the forceful nurse and ‘gently’ encouraged/demanded that he drink his weight in water, he’d had no choice but to get up and go to the bathroom. Unfortunately that meant he had to leave the bed and cross the hall to the bathroom, something that he considers akin to running a marathon right now.

Now he’s lain out on every available inch of the floor, trying to let it cool as much of his body as possible. He’s already stripped down to his underwear to sleep in but having lost it when it he went to the bathroom, he simply couldn’t find the strength to do anything more than kick the offending garment off his feet and sprawl out on the floor.

And now Felicity’s watching from the open doorway as he groans, his underwear still hooked around one toe, wondering if there’s anything sadder than a sick, naked man lying on the bathroom floor.

“You’re not dying,” she tells him tiredly.

“I am,” he insists, his voice thick and filled with the scratchy phlegm he alternates between choking on and coughing up with a grimace on his face.

“People don’t die from colds.”

He rolls his neck so his cheek is pressed to the floor, and he looks up at her without actually getting up, stretching a hand out towards her and slapping it down on the floor. “Can I have the blanket?”

She arches an eyebrow at him. “You want me to bring the bedsheets into the bathroom?”

“Please?” he croaks out.

“There is a zero percent chance of that happening.”

“But-“

“You’re not sleeping in the bathroom. You’re just too lazy to get up and walk to the bed.”

He groans and rubs his too-hot forehead on the floor to try and cool it. “Not lazy…dying…”

She sighs, pinching the bridge of her nose. “Oliver…”

“I choose death.”

“Get up, please.”

“Don’t wanna.”

–

By the time the sun sets, he’s back in bed and sleeping heavily, but when he does stir she’s so engrossed in an article about a new processor being released that she doesn’t notice until he physically takes the tablet from her and places it at the side of the bed. She goes to protest, but it’s slightly adorable how he’s trying, weakly, to tug her further down into the bed.

“Com’ere…” he tempts, his voice soft but still scratchy.

“I was reading that,” she says with a teasing smile.”

“Don’t care,” he mumbles, and she relents, putting herself beneath the duvet right beside him. His skin is cooler to the touch now and the shivers are from the general cold rather than the fever he stopped sweating out a few hours ago. He’s still covered in dried sweat and it’s far from appealing, but she allows him to draw her close all the same.

They face each other in the bed, one of his arms thrown around her side and moulding along the length of her spine, his fingers buried into the edge of her hair. His face finds a home in the crevice of her neck and shoulder, inhaling deeply, coughing once, then settling again as the chest irritation subsided. She resumes her earlier action of tracing through his hair, now and again trailing her fingertips down the back of his neck.

“How are you feeling?” she asked, her voice softer than it’s been all day, because before he was sick, he was protesting and fighting help because he was angry at himself for getting sick in the first place, but now it was different. Now it was night, the sun had gone down, they were alone in their room and everything was calmer and peaceful.

“Better now,” he mumbles, moving his head so slightly that it could have been a kiss against her neck, but it was more of a reassurance for them both. A sorry-I’ve-been-grumpy to compensate a sorry-I’m-such-a-bad-nurse. “M'sorry.”

“You don’t have to apologise for getting sick,” she whispers. “People get sick, Oliver, even heroes.”

With no more words, they fall back into each other and into the silence of the bed. He’s fighting sleep now, but she leans close to him and presses a single, soft kiss to his temple, leaving her lips there after. “Sleep it off, big guy.”

“Don’t wanna.”

“You need to sleep or the fever will come back,” she warns him.

“So?”

“So, I don’t want to watch your ass moaning on the bathroom floor again.”

This time he has a smile for her. “Oh, but it’s okay when it’s the bathroom wall?” She swats at his shoulder lightly, and he catches hand afterwards, holding it between them on the mattress. “Tired, he mumbled.

"Go to sleep,” she says quietly.

But he’s already snoring on her shoulder.

Oliver Queen does not get colds. But when he does get colds, he’s the most adorable, frustrating man you could possibly be around.


	32. I've Got You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ray Palmer + Stalking
> 
> NOTE: This is very OOC for Ray, but this grew from the idea that a lot of you didn’t like him, so I made him bad.
> 
> POSSIBLE TRIGGER WARNINGS.

John knew from the moment he heard the scream that they were right not to have trusted Ray Palmer.

He entered the dank alleyway with a trepidation for what he was seeing, Oliver in the Bluetooth unit in his ear on his way from their other location. They’d both been tracking him at night for some time, ever since the fall when he’d arrived with a vague agenda and a borderline unhealthy interest in Felicity’s technical talent. Needless to say, it had sent Oliver’s back up, especially after he’d started to date their babbling computer whiz. Oliver hadn’t been thrilled when she’d started working for him, his protective instincts only heightened by the admission of feelings between them, but she had started to work with him purely for the benefit of having a job that paid enough to keep them both going for the time being.

But when John heard the scream, he was torn from suspicion to full certainty that Ray was not what he made himself seem. The scream became muffled, then replaced with short cries of pain with thuds that told him this woman was getting more than a mild beating, and John rushed towards the commotion without any hesitation.

The woman was forced up against the wall between two large dumpsters, entirely hidden in the shadows save for a flash of fair hair against the filthy wall behind her. She struggled as her attacked loomed over her, far taller than her short height, pinning her with one arm braced against her chest, the hand covering her mouth and the other arm laid blows wherever he could hit. He was far broader than she was, and even though she was struggling, there was no amount of resisting that was helping her. He didn’t have time to see her face, only to comprehend her frightened squeals from behind her attackers hand as John pulled him away from her.

Effortlessly, John slammed him into the opposite wall, immediately distancing him from the young woman. A blur of rage stared back at him from the eyes of Ray Palmer. It was as though he were a man compelled, a vivid reminder of the Mirakuru incident last year, but this was something far more natural to the man.

“You son-of-a-bitch,” Ray spat at him, lunging at John who merely pushed him back again, struggling with him until he pulled out his gun and pressed it to the underside of Ray’s jaw.

“Now, you listen to me,” John half-growled at him in a voice that would have made Oliver proud. “Move and I’ll put a bullet in you. Did you hurt that girl?”

“She had it coming-” he cut off when John pressed the gun tighter against his throat.

Behind him, the woman slipped down the wall onto the ground, hidden from John’s view as she started to cry heart-wrenching, painful sobs that sounded eerily familiar. For a moment he wanted to release Ray, to see if she was okay, to see why instinct hadn’t let her scarper the second she’d been released from her attacker’s hold. However, his concern was no reason for him to back away from his responsibilities.

With the gun keeping Ray still, he pressed his comms unit and gave Oliver the update he needed and got him to call Lance’s men to come for Ray.

“Go!” he called out blindly to the woman. “Get out of here, now!”

But she didn’t move. She didn’t give any indication that she’d even heard his voice, and something about those cries were starting to get to him.

He looked over his shoulder, trying to see her as best he could, but all he could make out in the darkness was the figure of a woman curled in on herself. From above, he could see the fair hair spilling over her shoulders, but he couldn’t see her face because one of her arms was covering it, burying her features deep into the arm of her jacket. Her bright red heels were familiar, as if he’d seen them a thousand times before, and one of the heels was snapped in her effort to fend off her attacker, and hooked around her ankles was her underwear.

John saw red, turning back to Ray and slamming him against the wall by his throat. “What did you do to her?” he demanded roughly.

“Nothing-”

“I said, _what did you do?_ ” he shouted, the woman’s sobs echoing in his mind.

“Nothing, frigid _bitch_ -”

John cut him off by slamming his skull back against the wall. Violence against women sickened him, and his already present distaste of Ray was significantly heightened by this. Ray groaned at the contact, but just when John was about to unleash more pain on him, the flashing lights of the police were filling the alley. Lance wasted no time in arresting Ray, but the way the woman was hidden made it easy for them to bypass her.

John, however, made his way over to her. She might have needed an ambulance and he should have checked that before, but when he crouched at her side, bile rose in his throat.

“Felicity…”

Felicity. Felicity. This was their Felicity. Their girl. Ray had brought her here, where no one could hear her scream, and John had managed to pull him off of her because he was going to do God knew what else to her.

He felt nauseous, more so than he had before, because this was their Felicity. She was far more important than any other part of this situation, and Ray had hurt her. It was with a daunting realisation that he didn’t really know what Ray had done to her, or was about to do, but he was too angry to focus on that now. Ray would end up dead, that much was obvious. If John was this angry, he could only imagine the rage that would take over Oliver. The woman he loved had been assaulted in a dirty alley. Ray would die for this.

If he hadn’t been trying to find Ray…

Any alternative didn’t bear thinking about.

“This the girl?” Lance asked, breaking into his train of thought so he stood, covering Felicity’s body with his own.

“Yeah.”

“Has she said anything about what happened?”

“Nothing yet,” John shook his head.

“I’ll call in an ambulance, then we need to get a statement and-”

“No,” John insisted quickly. “I can take her home. She’s…a friend. I know her.”

“If she was assaulted…”

“She won’t be alone,” John insisted. “Besides, a…mutual friend has an interest in the man that did this. He’ll want to keep watch of her.”

Lance’s eyes went firm in understanding, but his distaste for the Arrow wasn’t voiced. John couldn’t allow Felicity to go to the hospital unless she really needed, because it would draw too much attention to her when Ray’s crimes were revealed. She hated hospitals, hated needles, and the last thing she needed was a publicity attack.

Lance relented enough to insist that she contacted him to make a statement first thing in the morning, leaving with Ray’s handcuffed form shoved into the back of the car, and then it was just the two of them; John and the young woman who was currently sobbing on the floor.

He dropped to her side, vaguely aware of Oliver’s voice demanding an update in his ear, but he shut out the sound so he couldn’t hear, and didn’t cast any thought to whatever grime was covering him. She didn’t notice him beside her, but when he gently touched a hand to her shoulder she jumped under his touch, flinching with a heartbreaking whimper.

“Felicity…look at me,” he directed, remaining with just a hand on her shoulder. She looked at him at last, eyes wide with her tears streaking her pale face. “Good girl, it’s me. It’s just me. You’re safe now,” he assured her, but she just swallowed and didn’t respond. He didn’t want to ask. He didn’t want to upset her, but no matter how bad it would make her feel he had to ask. He had to know. “Felicity, what did he do to you?” She sucked in a breath and he shook his head. “You have to tell me so I can help you.”

She just stared back at him, biting her quivering lip like a child, then moved into his arms, letting him embrace her. He held her against him, whispering soft words to her until he knew he couldn’t ignore Oliver anymore.

He brought one hand up to the comms, letting the noise flood through where Oliver was shouting for a response from him. “Diggle!”

“Oliver, I’m here,” he said. “Listen, you need to meet me at Felicity’s place.”

Oliver stopped in a stunned silence. “Why?”

“Just get there.”

He shut the sound off again, and slipped his arms beneath Felicity; one beneath her knees and the other across her back, lifting her into his arms. Her broken shoes hung from her feet, and she didn’t try to fight the help that he offered. He carried her out of the alley and to the car he’d parked in the next block, and slipped her into the passenger seat. “Come on, girl, let’s get you home.”

–

Oliver was pacing outside of Felicity’s apartment when they finally arrived. He was still in his Arrow gear, without care for whoever saw him, his bow not in sight, but when John lifted Felicity from the car he was rushing at them, his anxiety dissolving into something far more panicked. His expression didn’t falter when he reached them, his hands flying to Felicity’s face as if the strength inside him had failed him for a moment. Then he shifted quickly, scooping her out of his arms and into his own as he looked at Diggle. “Inside…” he murmured.

The change in movement shifted Felicity’s awareness, and she looked up with a startled expression until she saw who held her. Her eyes widened and she clung at him, her arms looping around his neck as she finally, finally spoke. “Oliver…” she croaked, burying herself into him as he moved toward the doorway.

“Shhh, I’ve got you, you’re home now,” he assured her, following John to the door while the other man dug around for his spare key to her apartment.

Once inside, Oliver moved for the couch, lowering her and looking over every inch for injury. She sat stoic, shoulders hunched in defeat while he raked his eyes in a head-to-toe examination, touching only her clothing, not her skin. When he saw the fabric of her underwear hanging from her leg, his worst fears shot through him and he slid down onto his knees before her. “No, no, no…” he said in a small whine, drawing her into his arms as her whimpers became full sobs.

John moved to the kitchen. He couldn’t watch that.

–

Hours later, Felicity was staring at the television even though the screen showed nothing but darkness. John had needed to get home to Lyla and the baby, which left Oliver to care for her in her desolate state. It didn’t take a genius to work out that she wasn’t looking at the television screen. He doubt that she would recognise something three feet in front of her. Once her tears had stopped, she’d slipped into an unawareness of anything. Oliver had seen it happen before, the way a trauma took over and the body shut down.

He’d taken her into the bedroom, helping her to change into something more comfortable. Really she needed a shower to remove the grime from her hair, but he knew she couldn’t. John had explained about what Lance had told him, and while they still didn’t know exactly what had happened to her, and if Ray admitted to any invasive forms of abuse they would need to run tests before she could wash away the evidence, so with a sick feeling in his stomach he’d placed her dirty clothes into an empty bag instead of the washer.

Now she was wearing a pair of pyjama pants with one of Oliver’s hoodies zipped all the way to her throat. The hood was thrown over her hair, as if to shield her from the rest of the world. She was in shock, he recognised it well. She still hadn’t spoken except for the one utter of Oliver’s name, and her hands were still trembling furiously. The fear in her eyes had faded and given way to a haunty, empty look that scared him even more than her cries had. Oliver had shuddered with rage when John had explained what happened, and his hands clenched as if he were already picturing Ray’s death.

Oliver would kill him without question. There wasn’t a shred of doubt about that. Felicity was the woman he loved and Ray had shattered her.

He brought the comforter from her bed into the living room, setting it around her shoulders as he took up his place beside her on the couch. She didn’t react except to lean sideways so she was resting her weight against him, her head nestled in the gap between his neck and shoulder that she’d exclusively marked as her own.

“I could hear him following me.”

Her voice was so soft he almost missed it, his arm sliding up to hers, rubbing his palm against her shoulders. She opened her mouth a few times, closing it again, and he gave a gentle nod. “Take your time, it’s okay,” he whispered.

“I should have called you,” she blurted out, her hands coming up to her mouth as she leaned forward to rest her elbows on her knees. “I…when you said to take a night off, I went out with some friends and…it really wasn’t far and I was tired so I left early and I should have called you for a ride because I’d been drinking but not that much, really not that much, and I didn’t think it’d take that long and it wasn’t that late, and I…and he was just there and he…” she cut her babble of with a deep breath, her voice breaking. “He…he was going to..”

Her breath started coming fast, too fast, tears falling into her words and Oliver moved for the glass of water on the coffee table, helping her to drink some despite her trembling hands. “Felicity, look at me,” he whispered, drawing her attention to him as he set the glass aside. She seemed to stare right through him until she seemed to snap back to attention and blinked at him.

“Oliver…”

“Yeah, it’s me,” he whispered. “I’m right here, and I’m not going anywhere. I know you’re scared, sweetheart, but I need you to talk to me.”

“Oliver…”

“It’s just you and me,” he assured her, his hand gripping hers. “I need to know how I can help you, okay?”

“He didn’t…” she choked out the words then swallowed. “He didn’t do it.”

“He didn’t…?”

“He didn’t…touch me,” she whispered. “He didn’t…he said he was…he was going to…god, he wanted to..but…”

“Shh, shh,” he cut her off when she started to fall over her words again, but inside he was relieved. Ray hadn’t touched her. John had intervened just in time. He’d been so afraid he’d hurt her in ways he wouldn’t able to fix. Bruises he could fix. Even broken bones could he fixed. Pain in her soul was not so easily calmed her.

“I tried to fight him off, I tried, I really did, just like Digg showed me-”

“I know, you did good,” he told her, bringing his hand up to her cheek, careful of the swelling on her jaw.

“I was _so_ scared,” she breathed out shakily, meeting his eyes properly for the first time.

“So was I,” he admitted, his voice tight as he replied.

“That he’d…touched me?”

“That he’d done anything to you,” he corrected her, his thumb stroking along her cheek.

“If…if he had, would it-”

“It wouldn’t change a thing,” he said quickly, his eyes searching into hers. “I love you, Felicity,” he reminded her, his voice soft and she leaned into his touch. “Nothing could change that.”

“He…he said it would,” she muttered with a sniff. “He said I was too good for you, that he knew who you really were…I swear I didn’t tell him anything, Oliver. I didn’t-”

“I trust you,” he said softly.

“I..I don’t know what to do now,” she struggled. “I want to…what happens now?” There was a fear in her voice, and her nails dug into her palms so tightly that she embedded half-moon crescents in the skin.

“Right now we just get through tonight,” he told her, taking her clenched finds and unfurling them to place them around his hands instead. “We’re going to get you washed up, then we’re going to lie down, and you’re going to get some sleep. Then tomorrow we’re going to go see Lance together and give a statement, okay?”

She tensed at the idea, but he shook his head.

“Felicity, we have to give a statement. We’ll do it together, okay? I’ll be there the whole time.”

“But he was going to-”

“And he will go down for it,” he assured her. “Lance will make sure of that, he bought us time to just…not deal with everything tonight, but tomorrow we do have to do something about this.”

“What about the Arrow?” she asked quietly.

“He’ll be making a trip to see Ray,” he said, the intent clear in his tone. “So tonight we focus on this. What do you need, right now?”

She fell silent, swallowing as she looked around. “My glasses,” she whispered. “My contacts are itching…”

They went back into the bathroom, and she took her contact lenses out with shaking hands and replaced them with her glasses, rubbing her eyes to reduce the soreness as she avoided the sight of the bruises on her face. He lead her to the bedroom before she could dwell on it, her movements slow and hesitant.

She moved to bed without any words and he lay beside her, as he always did these days. How could he even consider spending a night at the foundry when he had the option of sleeping beside this beautiful woman who was now his? Now that she accepted his touch without a shiver, and he wasn’t afraid of frightening her with it, he slid his arm around her, pressing his cheek to her hair.

She was still for a few minutes and he thought she’d fallen asleep, but then she’d flipped suddenly in his arms so she could rest her head against his chest. Her arm sprawled over his chest, holding herself to him, and he moved both arms around her, cradling her against him with a kiss to her temple.

“I’ve got you,” he whispered into the quiet of the room.


	33. Come Alive

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> waytoomanyfeelings said:
> 
> Oliver and Felicity and the first time he sees her after he finds out she was in a gun fight (season 4 trailer)

“Felicity!”

She hears his voice before she sees him, but his hands on her cheeks in seconds, his eyes grazing over her for any sign of injury. Her hands fly up to cover his, to hold him to her and feel his touch. Him being here means that they are closing the scene and that she can go home soon, and she very much wants to do that.

“I’m okay,” she assures him, and the paramedic at her side confirms it for Oliver with a small nod.

“Why are you–?”

“Just a precaution,” the paramedic pipes up, and Oliver shoots him a look. “She took a minor knock to the head during the altercation, but there doesn’t seem to be any signs of concussion.” The paramedic nods back to Felicity. “You can go home as soon as you’re ready, Miss Smoak.”

Felicity breathes a sigh of relief and clutches Oliver’s hands in her own. “Take me home?” she said quietly.

He doesn’t hesitate, getting her in the car and back to their apartment before she can blink. She can’t even imagine what he’s been going through in the last two hours when he couldn’t get to her, and she’s actually surprised she didn’t see him jumping the barrier restrictions when they lead her out of the building.

When they’re alone in their room, she forces her way into his arms only to find that he wants her there with a ferocity he’s never held her with before.

He knows there was an attack on the building.

He knows she wasn’t just inside, she was in the centre of it.

He knows there was gunfire.

He knows he couldn’t get to her for one hour and fifty-seven minutes.

She knows he is terrified.

His hands tremble as they cradle her to him, he can feel her heart beating like this and that’s enough to make his head dip to hers.

“Hey,” she breathes, framing her hands against his cheeks. “I’m okay, really. I’m not hurt.”

“There was gunfire, Felicity.”

“I’m not hurt.”

“What if you’d been shot? What if you’d been hurt and I wasn’t there?”

“Well, it would have been hard for me to be shot when I was holding the gun…”

He pulls back from her so quickly it leaves a breeze skating over her cheeks. “You were what?”

“They dropped the gun and they were about to go after Curtis so I had to-”

“You were the one shooting?”

“It was very much a life or death situation, Oliver. They were going to hurt us,” she points out, and his face falls.

“You shot a gun.”

“A machine gun, I think. It was really fast, really loud,” she remembers.

“I can’t even think…what…you were holding a gun?” he repeats, and his hands on her upper arms are almost bruising now.

“Oliver-”

He steps closer, and it stills her tongue, his name dying on her lips while she finds herself being backed against the bedroom door.

“Oliver?”

“You with a gun…” he breathes out.

“Is this…turning you on?” she asks him, questioning those darkened eyes that were blurring the lines between angry and horny in a way that promised many pronouncements to God that evening for her.

“It shouldn’t be, but it is,” he confesses.

She swallows, placing her hands on his chest. “I’m safe,” she assures him one final time. “I’m completely fine, I have a little headache but that’s all.”

“A headache,” he repeats, and she can’t tell which emotion he’s hiding behind this time.

“That’s all,” she nods, sliding her hands up to his neck.

“I hear orgasms are great for headaches,” he murmurs before he snaps her hips against the door and begins to devour her.


	34. I Choose You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> PROMPT: okay so I remember reading one of your fics of Felicity being extremely uncomfortable with her body after having a baby. Oliver seriously melted my heart! And lets face it.. Millions of us girls, including myself, have some serious body issues without having babies. Could you maybe do a story of Felicity in that type of situation? Possibly based on the new still of them in bed in broad daylight and Oliver being able to see every “flaw”. Thanks a stack! Xx

The first time they make love is Nanda Parbat. Though it was hard, desperate and somewhat rushed, she doesn’t consider it anything less meaningful than making love. How could it be anything else? She’d experienced lust before, and she’d lusted after Oliver, but what they’d shared that night had been purely emotion, and any need for it to be rushed was only because of circumstances, not any lack of adoration. There are candles, soft touches between the deep moans and disbelieving repetitions of ‘I love you’ and silk sheets that hide them away from sight.

The second time is the night he returns to her, and everything is slow and lazy because they are too tired for anything other than standard missionary in her darkened room. Her curtains have been closed for three days because she can’t really remember the last time she was home, the bed was already unmade and the lap was still off, so when they’d tumbled into the room a mass of aching limbs seeking warm skin, they didn’t feel the need to alter anything.

Each time, they find each other in the darkness, as if it’s symbolic of the way they’ve fallen for each other. They come together in times of darkness, and Felicity likes that, because she doesn’t have to hide anything.

And she has a lot she wants to hide.

Felicity hasn’t had daytime sex since her college days, back when she had to spring on any opportunity when her chosen partner’s roommate was likely to leave the room for more than thirty minutes, but in those days she expected everything to awkward fumbling so it was no disappointment when that’s what she got. Now, she expects better, and she knows she won’t be getting that from herself with the lights on.

Until Oliver.

Oliver Queen, who had dated supermodels and all standards of female perfection, has chosen to settle with her, and she’s not entirely sure he knows what he’s let himself in for. He tells her that he wants to spend the rest of his days with her, and that only slightly freaks her out, but when he mentions watching her gain wrinkles and liver spots and grey hair it’s supposed to make her smile but it only highlights the fact that she’ll only have more parts of her body that cause her insecurity, while he’ll inevitably grow old as he has aged so far in his life; like a fine wine; stomped on in a darkened room until he was deemed mature enough to be shown to the world, and continuously better with age.

So manages to hide her insecurities from him at first. And it’s easy.

They drive all day, and the one time they do stop for a fumble in the car (which is entirely her fault, because she’d been horny and teasing her hand up his thigh for thirty minutes) it’s already dark when they pull into a wooded area and she rides him in the driver’s seat while the horn goes off intermittently. Usually they make love in darkened motel rooms, or even the three nights in the pitch black tent on the campsite they desperately swore they’d never relive after the amount of bruises they awoke to.

So when she wakes to the gentle touches of lips against her inner thighs, she panics.

She freezes, and feels his hand stroking over her thigh. “It’s okay, it’s just me,” he whispers, peppering her skin with more kisses, his thumb drawing circles on her kneecap and all she feels is panic.

This should be a beautiful. This is a beautiful thing. The sun is streaming in through the open drapes they forgot to close last night, the sun is warming whatever bare skin isn’t covered by the white cotton sheets she’s entwined in, and the man she loves has his lips inches away from somewhere he’s very skilled at pleasuring.

But she’s not feeling it.

Rather than relaxing, she tenses. He notices, though, and raises his head, settling his chin on her hip and giving her an adorably sleepy head tilt. “Hey, what’s wrong?”

What’s wrong?

What’s wrong is that Felicity is not a natural blonde, and every hair south of her neck is darker than what’s on her head. What’s wrong is that because it’s darker, this hair shows a little quicker than fair hair did. She usually gave her legs a quick once over with a razor every day, but yesterday she hadn’t had time so she knew they were bristly. She’d felt it last night when she brushed her legs against the sheets and she’d hoped that he hadn’t noticed last night so he’ll definitely notice now.

What’s wrong is that she’s working with disposable razors in hotel rooms and they leave shaving rash as the hair grows back in, so when he’d been kissing her thighs he was actually looking at the angry dark stubble and red bumps that made her high school acne look mild.

What’s wrong is that she’s going to get her period in a few days, so her stomach is more bloated than usual and they’ve been eating so much packaged food on the road that she’s got enough of a PMS water gain to rival a woman in the early stages of pregnancy so it’s even more unnerving that he’s resting his chin on her hip because he’ll actually notice it from there and it’s only in the last three seconds that she started sucking in her stomach a little.

What’s wrong is that another benefit of PMS is the pimples on her chin, the ones he’s been too smart not to comment on and she knows they’re a special angry shade of red first thing in the morning. Let’s not even mention the possibility of morning breath.

The touch of his lips against her hipbone brings a hitch in her breath. “Felicity?” he asks, not taking his eyes off of hers, which is horrible because she’s probably sporting a double chin from the angle he’s at. “Is this okay?”

Now that’s a loaded question.

What he means is: is it okay that I’m waking you up with what I promise will be a wonderful orgasm?

What she hears is: do you mind me taking this precious moment to look at every single part of you that you hate while you lay there and squirm and fool yourself into thinking that I’m not noticing them?

But no, she has to make this an okay thing. This is clearly going forwards in a steady manner, and she’s going to have a lot of these mornings, and she can’t spend the rest of her life running for a quick body check in the bathroom every time she thinks Oliver’s in the mood and might make a pass at her that she’s powerless to resist.

So she tells him it’s okay, and he throws her an almost predatory grin before going back to his task.

He trails his fingers up the inside of her thighs as he settles back between them, and she tries not to think about the line of hair on the back of her thigh that she’s missed with the razor her last two showers - there’s always a spot, isn’t there? - and when he brushes his fingers over it, she draws in a gasp.

“Relax,” he whispered, kissing her opposite thigh, thinking he’s just found a sensitive spot, and his breath makes her relax just a little. At least he’s being a gentleman and not commenting on it.

But then he’s following with his lips and she feels like crying just a little when he draws her legs over his shoulders so he can reach the sensitive parts on her back of her thighs. All she can think of is how his lips are directly on the patches of cellulite that she does her very best to keep hidden in all circumstances.

She knows she shouldn’t, because all women do this. All women have to remove body hair. All woman miss a part of it. All women have an angle they don’t like being looked at from. All women hate the way their thighs wobble and that their stomach sticks out just a little too much around that time of month. All women wonder if they have a smell or whether their skin is too dry or too oily, or whether she’s-

“Felicity, you’re thinking out loud,” Oliver murmurs, inches away from his goal between her legs which she really needed to trim.

But that didn’t matter, because she swallows and slammed her eyes shut.

He pulls away from her, crawling up her body until he’s leaning over her, his lips finding her cheek as he takes advantage of her parted thighs to settle his legs between them, lowering over her. “Why do you worry about all that?” he asks her.

“What?” she murmurs, trying to play dumb to the fact she’s just listed every insecurity and bad part of her body while he tries to make her feel good instead.

“You’re a woman, Felicity, you don’t have to be perfect. I wouldn’t want you if you were.”

His words, breathed against her lips, cause her eyes to open hesitantly. “What do you mean?”

He kisses her first, slowly, sweetly, until she moulds her body into the mattress beneath him. Then he kisses her cheeks, her eyelids, the tip of her nose… “I love you,” he says in a ghost of a voice. “Every part of you is perfect for me, because I choose you every time,” he says, as he starts a path from her neck down the centre of her body. “I choose these breasts,” he whispers, teasing them briefly with his lips as her heart starts to race in trepidation.  “I choose this stomach,” he murmurs, pressing his kisses over every inch of it.

He continues until he’s covered every inch that she’s wanted to hide from him, and there are tears on her cheeks when he comes back to kiss them again. “I choose you,” he whispers. “I choose you on bad hair days, and when you wake up with morning breath. I choose you when you haven’t shaved your legs, or when you get pimples, or when you’re worried that your elbows are too dry. I choose you, and every little lump or bump or extra curve because you really don’t see how beautiful it makes you,” he breathes out with a smile, and his hand comes to her cheek. “I don’t want you to think you have to spend so much time making your body look perfect for me, because that’s not what love is. Love is being comfortable with someone.”

This time when his fingertips spread over her thighs, she gasps in a far sweeter way, and his lips curl back around hers. “That’s my girl.”


	35. Don't Leave Me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anonymous said:
> 
> How about Felicity ALMOST dies at childbirth?

“Okay, Felicity,” the midwife announced, lifting her head from between her legs with a bright smile. “You’re fully dilated, it’s time to start pushing.”

Felicity looked at her in disbelief, wondering how, after all she had been doing for the last eighteen hours of this labour, there was anything else that could drag the energy from her exhausted body. This was rivalling the horror labors she’d read about online, and she was so tired that Oliver had slipped behind her back, supporting her as she sat up, but they gave him a nod to move and she groans when she misses that force keeping her upright.

She was so exhausted, so tired, and she really didn’t know whether she had been here for hours or days. It was only Oliver’s hourly updates to his sister that kept her aware of how long they’d been at the hospital, waiting for their daughter to arrive. Her blonde hair was falling from the grip that was holding it away from her face, sticking to the warm sheen of sweat covering her skin. No matter how many times Oliver cooled her with a compress or got her ice chips, she felt as if she was burning up from her core, and her cheeks were flushed from the strain. Did she feel attractive at that moment? Hell no.

“This is going to hurt, isn’t it?” she realised with an inward groan that may have been more audible than she intended.

“There’s nothing to worry about, sweetheart, we’re all here to help.”

Felicity liked this midwife. She reminded her most of her mother and considering her mother was held up at the airport trying to get a flight in time for the baby being born, it helped to have her there as well as the doctor.

“You can do this,” Oliver assured her, kissing the side of her head. “We’re almost there, okay? She’s almost here.”

She turned to him with a sudden panic in her eyes. “What if I can’t?” she asked.

“You can,” he insisted. “You’ve got this far, you can do this. I know you can.”

“But what if I can’t?” she pressed. “You’ve got big shoulders and I’m only tiny, what if she gets stuck?”

“Look at me, Felicity,” he instructed her, guiding her to him by the chin, cupping her cheek within the safety of his palm. “I’m right here, okay? We’re going to do this together. Me and you, and our little girl. Just think about that, okay? Think about how amazing our life is going to be when she’s here…think about how badly you want to hold her, about all the things we’ll get to show her and teach her…think of her smile…hold onto that, okay?”

“Okay,” she whispered.

“Ready?” he asked her, gripping her hand within both of his own.

“I think so,” she nodded.

“Don’t worry,” he told her again with a smile, drawing her in for one last kiss before they bring their baby into the world. “It’s going to be okay, you can do this.”

“Okay, Felicity,” the midwife intervenes. “The next contraction is coming, when you feel it starting I want you to start pushing for the count of ten.”

Felicity nodded, but said nothing as she waited for the inevitable wave of pain. Anxious, she realised that this was it. It was happening, and it was happening now. In a short while, their baby girl would be taking her first lone breaths and she would no longer be carrying her inside her womb. She’d be able to hold her properly, see her open her eyes, hear her cries and be able to calm them. She would be able to meet her daughter.

It was that thought that gave her the strength to push when the next contraction hit her. It hurt more than she could ever imagine, and she didn’t hold back her cries of pain. She could hear everyone in the room coaching her through it but the only voice she paid attention to was Oliver. At the end of the day, it didn’t matter how many doctors were there, how many midwives, or even that her mother wasn’t there, because all that mattered was that he was there.

After a particularly hard contraction, the doctor gave her a moment to breath and she collapsed back for a moment, only coming to a stop when Oliver’s arm kept her upright. “You’re doing great, Felicity,” he grinned at her, and of course he was grinning because this was the birth of his first child.

“God, it really hurts!” she moaned out, her eyes screwed up.

The next contraction came and Felicity pushed again, gasping out with tears filling her eyes as the midwife announced that she could see the head. “See, babe, it’s almost over, you’re nearly done,” Oliver encouraged her.

“One more push will clear the shoulders, then we’ll be good,” the doctor nodded, but Felicity wasn’t feeling nearly as confident.

She felt panicked and fell back against Oliver’s arm once more. He caught the look on her face and pulled her hair back where it had started slipping down. “Come on, sweetheart, you’re almost there, you can do this,” he whispered to her. “Just a little more.”

She shook her head. “I just…I can’t. I don’t feel…right,” she told him, and he frowned at her, concern flooding his face. “Something’s wrong.”

“Don’t worry, Mrs. Queen,” the doctor said, after checking the equipment they had set up. “We’re monitoring you and the baby very carefully, you’re both completely safe.”

Oliver trusted Felicity’s intuition far more than he trusted technology. If she said something was wrong, then something was wrong, but another contraction was approaching and she had to focus. “Come on,” he tightened his grip on her hand. “One more push and she’s here. One more. I know you can do this.”

She took a deep breath and nodded. “One more.”

“One more,” he repeated.

One more was enough, and moments later Felicity’s cry was drowned out by another sound, a sound so innocent and new and perfect that it could only be the first cry of a newborn baby. She lay back, and Oliver held her weak grip as he looked towards the cry, seeing a glimpse of his daughter being wrapped in a blanket and whisked away to the other side of the room to be checked over. However, that moment was enough for him to see her face for the first time, and all the breath left him.

“Do you hear that, Felicity?” he asked, turning back to her slowly. “That’s our…Felicity!”

She wasn’t panting for breath. Wasn’t bathed in a motherly glow.

She was unconscious.

–

The next twenty-four hours is a blur of blood transfusions and insurance paperwork, and not nearly enough time with his wife and daughter. For the time he can be with them, Oliver is in the chair at her bedside, facing the blind-covered window they’re keeping shut to avoid any reporters finding out what happened. He didn’t let anyone else come to the hospital, even though they wanted to be there for support, but Oliver couldn’t stomach the idea of anyone else seeing the baby before Felicity did, and so he was alone while he waited.

They’d told her that she was just sleeping now, resting, regaining her energy. She’d lost too much blood during the birth, which is why she’d collapsed, but as it had been a long labour she needed the time to recover. But he wanted her here. He knew she needed the rest, but his heart hurt. It actually hurt.

What kept him going was their daughter.

Holding his daughter for the first time had brought a new pride to him. Even though he had a lifetime of bad decisions on his shoulders, he was a man reborn when his daughter lay cooing in his arms for the first time. He’d imagined the remarkable moment of holding his newborn child for the first time, but nothing could have prepared him for that overwhelming, instant surge of love.

–

“‘liv-er?”

The word was simple. His name. A word that he’d heard countless times, but it had never meant more to him than in that moment.

“Felicity,” he whispered, placing their daughter down into the hospital bassinet as he rushes to her side. “I’m here,” he assured her, watched her open her eyes and then there she was, looking back at him, blue eyes he’d been separated from for over a day and that just wasn’t acceptable.

–

The doctors make him leave while they do their examination of her, and he waits in the hall with their daughter cradled against his chest until they let him back in. When they do, the bed is elevated slightly and she was sat up, smiling weakly when she saw him enter.

He crossed the room in a moment to be at her side, sitting down on the edge of the bed to kiss her. “Oh, thank god,” he breathed against her lips. “Are you okay? Do you feel okay?”

“I’m sore, and I feel really tired, but I’m okay,” she assured him.

He felt the emotion of being awake for over seventy-two hours wearing at him. and he was kissing her again, stopping only when their daughter whimpered against his shoulder.

Felicity looks down instantly, placing her hand on the back of the baby’s head. “Oh, Oliver…” she whispered breathlessly. This was her. This was their daughter. The daughter she was seeing or the first time.

He gave her a watery smile. “You have no idea how much she’s wanted to meet you,” he told her. “Come on, hold out your arms, Momma.”

She took her daughter into her arms for the first time, far too late for her liking, and her beautiful baby curls into the shape of her body, causing tears to spill onto Felicity’s chest. She knew who she was. She knew. A sob left her, and she pressed a kiss to the tiny forehead. “My girl,” she whispered, looking up at Oliver after with the most beautiful smile. “Our little girl.”

“Isn’t she perfect?” Oliver choked out.

Felicity looked down at her daughter; the child they’d created with their love. The tiny face looked up at her, deep blue eyes that she wanted to look into for the rest of her life, a turn up on her nose like her own, a chin identical to Oliver’s. Yes, this was their daughter. This was their baby. This is what made the waiting worth it.

This was the ultimate form of love.

“So perfect,” Felicity whispered, tracing her finger down the side of her face.

Oliver’s lips landed against her forehead. “Don’t scare me like that again.”


	36. Tonight's The Night

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anonymous said: Could you write a take on the proposal, where Felicity is trying to tell Oliver she’s pregnant and Oliver is trying to propose? And they’re both nervous as hell.

Tonight’s the night.

He’s ready. He’s sure he’s ready. Hell, he’s been ready for months. He’s been ready since they hit the road and he wanted to ask her in a thousand different places. Every time they stopped walking long enough to drop to one knee, he considered doing it - only he chickened out or they were distracted or he was terrified she’d say no because it was too soon and he ended up stooping to tie his shoelaces far too many times.

But he’s ready. This time, for sure.

He’s made dinner. He’s going to put the ring in a soufflé, because what girl can say no to baked goods? Certainly not his. He’s had this ring for months, simple but stunning, just like her, and he’ll almost miss it’s assuring presence of one day in his pocket when she’s wearing it on her finger.

“What’s the occasion?”

_You’re going to be my wife._

–

Tonight’s the night.

She’s going to do it. She has to do it. She’s not ready, and she’s not sure telling him will help that, but she’s running out of time to tell him before he figures it out himself and then worries why she’s hidden it from him. She’s almost told him twelve times today alone, the words almost blurting out every time he looks at her with that dopey _I’m-so-fucking-happy_ grin she’s actually gotten used to. But she’d chickened out because it was so soon, too soon, and part of her wasn’t sure they were ready for this.

But she’s going to do it. This time, for sure.

He’s making dinner. He wants to make tonight special for reasons he insist don’t exist, so she figures she’ll make the night special. That’s what people do, right? They make it a romantic gesture to take away the pure fear of holy-shit-we’re-having-a-baby.

“What’s the occasion?”

_You’re going to be a father._

–

How he makes it through the meal is miraculous.

She seems distracted, so distracted she’s actually trying too hard to seem normal and he realises - she knows. She knows what he’s trying to do, he was too obvious with the dinner, the flowers on the table, the fact that he’s actually hanging his hands between his legs like a nervous kid. She knows. She knows and it’s scaring her.

He almost backs out.

But he has a plan, and he does like to follow through on a plan.

–

How she makes it through the meal is miraculous.

The man looks terrified, so frightened that she catches him taking several deep, nervous breaths to calm himself and she realises - he knows. He knows what she’s trying to do, she was too obvious with the slightly baggy sweater, the slight jiggle of her leg beneath the table, and the fact that she’s actually physically unable to stop talking. He know. He knows and it’s scaring him.

She almost backs out.

But she has a plan, and she does like to follow through on a plan.

–

“So I wanted to-”

“So I need to-”

“You first-”

“You first-”

“Why don’t I get the dessert?”

–

He comes back from the kitchen holding a tray with two soufflés. He tries to stop his hands trembling, or at least so much that he can hold the tray steady, he stops when he sees her standing up beside the table, biting on her thumbnail.

“What’s wrong?” he asks, setting the tray down on the table.

“I have something for you.”

“I have something for you too,” he breathes out.

They’re both nervous. Both sketchy.

He swallows. “Maybe we should…trade things?” he suggests.

She release a breath. “Yeah. Yeah, let’s do that.”

–

He hands her a soufflé with an engagement ring resting on the cream.

–

She hands him a pregnancy test with two pink lines.

–

When Thea and Laurel arrive a few moments later, the two of them are caught in a tight embrace, a ring on Felicity’s finger, and the pregnancy test clutched tightly in Oliver’s hand.


	37. I Need Her Safe

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> marialovesdean said: Hi are you still taking request for stories? How about one where it’s like their date (how it ended? And instead of being calmed down by diggle they don’t calm down utill they have the other in their arms slidding down a wall. tag me please!!:)

The thought that he almost loses her so soon after letting her in makes his heart thud in ways he rarely felt before.

This is how it felt to watch his mother die before him. This is how it felt to hear Thea had been kidnapped. This is how it felt to lose Tommy. Lose his father. Lose everyone.

He cannot lose her too.

She lies before him in that red dress - charred in places, filthy in others, but still beautiful - and he cannot leave her side. Diggle tries to speak to him but he doesn’t hear the words. There’s work to be done, he needs to change, needs to clean up, but she’s still unconscious and he can’t breathe properly.

It’s not the smoke from the bomb. It’s because her eyes are still closed.

He sees that blood at her hairline and his stomach is turning. His hands almost tremble as he rushes for the anti-bacterial wipe she insists on keeping around and he’s suddenly thankful for. He hopes the alcoholic sting will wake her but it doesn’t, she’s still until he’s managed to wipe all the dirt from her face and she almost looks like she’s sleeping again.

So much so that he leans over and cards his fingers through her hair.

He can do that now, right? They were on a date when this happened, and he plans to finish that date when things have settled down. Yes, they have work to do, but he’s also in love with her, and isn’t there a quote about love not waiting for work, but work can wait for love? That doesn’t make sense, but all he can think right now is that she’s unconscious and he cannot leave her side.

Her hair is as soft as he’s imagined, even with the dust from the explosion in it. Her lips are still red from her lipstick, matching her dress, matching the blood teasing the wound on her forehead. She is still beautiful. So beautiful. He regrets he won’t have the chance to place his hands on her waist, kiss her goodnight and plan their second date for tomorrow - what? he’s respectful, he’s not slow. This is the love of his life. He’s wasted enough time already.

He’s started to picture how to tell her he loves her for real when she bolts up into his arms and everything starts moving quickly again.

–

Later, they’re leaving the hospital and he drives her home. Something about the baby’s appearance in all of this makes him realise he could have lost far more than her tonight - he could have lost the future that comes with her. He follows her to the door, and asks if he can just see her inside, and she’s so high on new baby smell that she obliges with the sweetest smile, and then he crushes her against the wall inside her front door.

She realises a quick ‘oh’ before she’s in his arms, and she indulges him she wants him. But this isn’t passionate, isn’t the kiss he’s planned, it’s just her in his arms and the desperation to keep her safe there.

She places her arms around his shoulders, slipping them down to the floor where it’s more comfortable and they can hold each other. He doesn’t release her, only perching on his knees and drawing her into his lap. She grips him just as tightly and it allows him the serenity of placing his face in the junction between her neck and her shoulder and just breathe her in.

Only then does his heart calm down, only then does he assure himself that she’s alive, that she’s here.

Only then does he tell her that he’s in love with her.


	38. You Were Mean

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> saumyapriyadarshi said:
> 
> I love your fics & I love your imagination. In the bane of my existence that is this hiatus you and your fics are God send. I have a prompt for you if you are still up for it. Can you please write something about Olicity fighting about Felicity going in the field, Felicity getting a bit hurt and then making up. I know its a long prompt but pretty please. Also can you please tag me in your fics from now on..! Get well soon.. XOXO

He hears a gunshot, a squeal of pain, and the crackle of a comms link going dead.

All he can think is that she’s dead, and the last thing they did together was fight.

She went into the field tonight, against his very vocal wishes, and now she has paid the price. He got mildly possessive over the idea of her posing as a single girl of the night, luring back their target to a more open area so they could get the drop on him, but instead he hadn’t been close enough and he got the drop on her instead.

He’s never driven so fast, never let his bike collapse to the ground before, never ran so fast into the foundry and pushed all other thoughts aside apart from getting to Felicity.

He finds her in sat up, alert, awake, alive, with Diggle leaning over her and the breath of relief almost knocks him to the ground. In the short moments its taken him to get back, Diggle is there, pressing a piece of gauze against the flow of blood from her arm and she is alive, that’s all that matters.

“Felicity,” he breathes, rushing to her side and cupping his hands to her cheeks while he checks the rest of her for injury. Torso - unharmed, head - fine, legs - mint condition, face - beautiful, arms - bullet graze. Graze. Not an impact wound.

“I’m okay,” she hisses, eyes screwed up as Diggle tries to clean the wound on her arm.

He wants to tell her that he’s never been so happy to see her alive. He wants to tell her that they’re going to go home, go to bed, and forget about this day. He wants to tell her that he’s sorry about their fight and for the things that he said, but instead– “This is exactly why you aren’t going out into the field.”

Her closed eyes slam open. “Excuse me?” she bites out.

“Oliver, not now,” Diggle tells him calmly, his attention focused entirely on Felicity’s arm.

“I told you this would happen if you-”

“Oliver!” Diggle interrupts, his voice louder and sterner. “Not now. Take a shower, take a walk, do something, calm down.” He looks to Felicity, to her arm, and then to Diggle, and his chest heaves with the effort of breathing calmly. “I’ve got her, she’s fine.”

–

He returns a short while later. He’d showered and changed back into his usual clothing, and now Felicity is changed too. She’s perched on the medical table, her short legs swinging over the edge of it, and rather than the outfit she’d worn out earlier she’s now clad in the yoga pants and over-sized sweater she keeps here for emergencies. He can’t even see where Diggle repaired her arms, but her head is moving around in a way that betrays that Diggle’s been handing out his special ‘aspirins’ again.

He moves to her like gravity, drawn in by the centre of his universe which is, and always has been, her. He pushes their sharp words aside and draws her into his arms, standing between her legs and pulling her head against his shoulder and she hums, burrowing into him.

“You need to say you’re sorry, you were mean,” she decides, and the faint slur of her words makes him smile sadly.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers, at her command. “I didn’t mean to…say most of what I said.”

“But some of it?” she asks.

“I never want you to get hurt,” he tells her, touching his lips to the top of her head.

“I just got hurt a little bit,” she says, holding up her hands and smearing her fingers together as if to demonstrate just how much.

He closes his hand over hers, closing that gap completely. “I’d rather it be that much,” he tells her. “I know I say it the worst ways, but I just want to keep you safe.”

“You keep me safe,” she sighs, nuzzling her face into his chest, and he feels her weight getting heavier and heavier against him.

His eyes raise to find Diggle’s just as he’s coming back from the sink, drying his hands. “She’s had 2 oxy’s, she’ll need another in a few hours,” he decides. “Go home, I’ll shut it down here.”

Oliver thanks him, usually he’d insist on being the last one out but he quickly realises that Felicity’s more than zoning out against him. “Come on, druggy, let’s get you home.”


	39. This Is Real

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> inscreaminggcolours said:
> 
> I don’t know if prompts are still open but I think this would be a great fic: Felicity has a nightmare about maybe Oliver dying and when she wakes up crying Oliver comforts her.

She wakes up with a scream on her lips she doesn’t immediately realise is from her lips. There are desperate, ragged sounds from the back of her throat because she can’t get enough oxygen, but when she sits up its not by her own choice. Arms are pulling her upright, hands are cupping her cheeks, scraping her hair out of her face and she’s burning, burning, and everything’s so—

“Felicity, breathe, you have to breath….”

His voice is soothing, and it takes a few moments for the haze of darkness to clear before she realises the hands are his, the eyes are his, and the pulse racing is her own. He is here. He is alive. He is—

“I’m right here, you’re safe, you’re okay.”

She’s not okay.

She swallows, still gulping down air, and when she raises her hands to push away the hair that has fallen out of her ponytail, she realises her hands are shaking.

He takes them in one of his own, his hands so large they completely encase her trembling digits. “It’s okay, it was just a dream,” he whispers.

Her eyes slam shut, only to be presented with the same frightening images again, so she rushes them open and brings her hand to the mark on his bare chest, the place where the nightmare of Oliver had been impaled and her breath hitches.

“Felicity?” he asks as he closes his hand over hers.

“He killed you,” she gasps, her breath heaving as the words fall out. “Ra’s…he caught us, he knew what I did, knew I wanted to help you escape, so he made me watch, and he killed–”

“Hey, hey,” he whispers, his voice a soothing breeze as his arms come around her shoulders, crushing her against him. She burrows into him, her face taking residence in the crease of his shoulder that she’s decided is exclusively her own. “It was just a nightmare.”

“It felt so real,” she shudders out, worried that her fingertips are digging into his back but she can’t release him, can’t let him go.

“Our worst fears always do,” he agrees softly, and she knows he will never disregard what haunts her at night, because his plagues are far deadlier than her own. He dreams of her dying, her tortured, her screaming in pain, and for a fleeting moment she takes solace in the fact that at least in her nightmares Oliver’s death is swift.

He takes the hand she has lain over his scar and moves it over to where she can feel his heart beating. “But I’m okay,” he assures her. “I’m right here. Whatever you saw, it wasn’t real. This is real.”

“This is real,” she repeats in a whisper.

“This is real,” he says again, his lips finding a home in her hair. His hands stroke over her back, slipping beneath her pyjama top (his t-shirt) so she can feel the warmth of his touch. “This is real.”

And this is real.

This is hers now.

Oliver in their bed - they have a shared one now - is real. Being in Oliver’s arms is real. Oliver’s shirts hanging beside her dresses is real. Oliver’s lips against her temple is real. This is real. This is their life now. Ra’s al Ghul cannot touch them here.

No one can touch them here.

Her fears slip away with each lasting tingle of his touch. He is not seducing her, and when he eases her back between the bedsheets his hands aren’t wandering, but his hands slide her closer to him and she eagerly fits into the space his arms open to create. Her head rests just above his heart, and it’s that solid, real thud that lulls her back to sleep.

This is real.


	40. I Can Do It

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anonymous said:
> 
> Felecity can’t reach something and Oliver is cracking up watching her struggle to reach the top shelf and he does offer to help her but her pride is stopping her from saying yes.

She doesn’t need his help. She absolutely does not need his help.

She doesn’t know why he’s so fracking smug about being tall but having legs in not a life-skill.

She does know that she’s going to kick him and leave bruises on those legs if he doesn’t stop it.

“Are you sure you don’t-?”

“I do not need your help, Oliver!” she snaps back.

She stretches her arm a little higher, and she almost has the edge of the packaging in her gras and–”

“Because you look like you might.”

She slumped back down, turning to him with a dangerously feral expression. “I will murder you in the middle of a grocery store, do not test me.”

His eyebrows shot up. “Felicity, it’s just cereal.”

“No, it’s not ‘just’ cereal,” she repeated incredulously. “This is a point against the supermarket. They don’t have any access to the top shelves for anyone shorter than nine-foot-twelve–”

“–I’m not that tall–”

“–and it’s not fair. I want the cookie cereal. I want it, Oliver, and I am going to get it.”

He considers his next words carefully, she can see the deliberation on his face, but he loses the battle. “It’s so bad for you, it’s chock full of sugar and additives and -”

“Oliver,” she snaps, cutting him off. “I am not a six year old.”

“You really shouldn’t be eating that–”

“If you call my favourite cereal ‘crap’ or any variation of it, I will cause you physical harm.”

He has the decency to look afraid at least, so she turns around and starts to half-climb the shelf unit to reach the top shelf. This has been her favourite cereal since she was twelve years old. She found it in high school, found it in college, and yes, she has found it in the supermarket right by their house and dammit, she will reach the damn shelf.

“I could just give you a boost?” he offers weakly.

She doesn’t even turn to him, just hooks her foot on the shelf and uses it to raise her a few inches. Her fingers brush the box. “I don’t need your help.”

“Felicity, people are staring-”

“Because you’re being an ass,” she says bluntly.

“I am not being an ass, I’m offering to help you.”

“I am not a helpless woman,” she shoots back, as she finally scoops the corner of the box towards the edge and pulls it closer, closer and… “Aha! See! I got it!”

She gestures behind her wildly, and he lifts the box from her hands and places it in the cart with the rest of their groceries. “Well done, now can we please move because people are taking pictures and-”

“Oh, relax!” she tells him with exasperation, and she goes to climb down but the heel of her shoe catches in the shelf and she stumbles.

His arms are there instantly, stopping her from hitting the ground and now people are definitely taking pictures of them because Oliver Queen, the Oliver Queen, just rescued his clumsy girlfriend from falling off the shelving unit that she shouldn’t have been climbing in the first place.

“My hero,” she teases as he places her back on her feet.

He just grins at her, shaking his head. “Next time, just let me help?”

“Never come between a girl and her cereal, Oliver.”


	41. Left Behind

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anonymous said: Can you write a fic where Felicity can’t bear to look at or touch her baby for the first couple of months, and Oliver does everything for the baby, and Felicity is in despair (and some jealousy) over it and is depressed?
> 
> Note: I have to say, I did a lot of research for this one and it’s a lot longer than most things I post because I simply needed to do this justice. 15% of new mothers experience this and I didn’t want to leave out any of the parts of this that shed light on it. I hope this does the condition justice x

It begins in the hospital.

She’s born too early, too small, too underdeveloped, and they spend an agonising three days waiting to find out if their thirty-week-old fetus is even going to survive. That’s what she is still, scientifically speaking. She’s so small, so thin, that she barely even looks like a newborn.

Felicity had a birth plan. She had a list of what she was going to have in her back from eight months onwards, duplicates of which would be kept at work, at home, and in the basement of their house where they operate the new ‘team Arrow’ lair from, so that they were ready for any possibility. She had a plan to breastfeed for the first few months, but to ease into bottle feeding so that Oliver could have those precious bonding moments too, and let’s face it, he was up half the night anyway, so it made sense for him to volunteer for the night time feeds. She had an exercise plan for the baby weight.

Felicity’s plan is never implemented. She goes into labour on a Thursday afternoon, and for two days they try to stop her contractions until they realise it is futile, and the baby is born at four pounds and three ounces. Her lungs aren’t fully developed. She’s whisked away to a specialist unit before they can even see her face. Oliver isn’t even allowed in the room. She gives birth alone, frightened, and then she has nothing in her arms to show for it.

The baby stays in the hospital for three weeks, receiving steroids for until her lungs are formed when she should be receiving breast milk, but all Felicity can do is sit beside a plastic box that is keeping the baby alive and watch as nurses feed the baby instead. For a week, all they can do is put their gloved hands in to touch her a few times a day and it isn’t enough. She wants more. She starts to accept she can’t have it.

Then they put this weightless three-week-old child in her arms and tell her that it’s time to go home.

She’s never wanted to go anywhere less.

–

Things are worse when they go home. She is expected to basking in new-mom bliss, to be celebrating the fact that her baby girl is a fighter, but she feels as if she has brought home a stranger. It feels as though they’re babysitting and she’s waiting for the parents to come and pick up the child. But she is the parent and she cannot escape this life. This life that she wanted. That they planned for. That she doesn’t fit into.

Their friends and family visit often; it’s easy then. Everyone wants to hold the baby - they name her Ava, it’s one from their list, it means life and Oliver insists she fought every moment for hers. Felicity wants to tell him she didn’t fight, she laid in a box rigged with wires while they watched her and waited to see if any breath was her last - and when others come to see them, they all want to hold her, to soothe her cries, to change her, to bathe her, and it takes the pressure away. They dote on this little baby who wants to be embraced, wants to be held, wants to be celebrated and loved.

Felicity does not want to celebrate. She wants to cry. All the time.

She’s prepared herself for tears of joy, tears of excitement, but she hasn’t prepared for the anxiety that grips her throat each time she’s alone in the room with her child.

–

When she’s seven weeks old, Felicity feels the once-familiar forehead kiss of her husband as he puts on a green suit and leaves her in the basement with her computers, and goes out to save the city. He delivers the same forehead kiss to the infant in the bassinet beside her desk. He goes out with the others, promises to come home safely, and Felicity stays behind with a crying infant who still has trouble feeding properly.

Felicity is left behind.

–

Oliver does the night time feeds. Felicity can’t stop sleeping. She wants to sleep all the time now, because when she sleeps the days pass a little quicker and one day she’ll wake up and all this will have ended and life will feel normal again. It’s hard to sleep when the baby cries, so when Oliver goes back to work and she’s at home with the baby alone, she mostly cries every time the baby does and nothing gets done. The house is a mess. The laundry isn’t done. Once she watches Oliver go off to a meeting with spit-up on the collar of his shirt and she doesn’t have the energy to tell him it’s there, because maybe he’ll see it later in the day and realise that this is how she feels every day.

The baby cries. Felicity cries.

They both want to love each other.

But it doesn’t come easily.

–

When Oliver comes home from work, she directs him towards the baby in the bassinet who is relatively newborn-sized and far less delicate now, but she is still afraid to hold her and definitely afraid to feel the tiny hands clenching into her shirt as she seeks for the comfort that her mother fails to provide. She hates it. Oliver is a natural, though, and knows what his child needs without questioning it. The baby settles so easily, so calmly in his embrace. She eats without protest, doesn’t squirm when he changes her, shares that intimate eye contact that they read about in the books and Felicity busies herself with doing the dishes and tries to remember if she ever looked directly into her baby’s eyes.

She hasn’t.

–

She puts on a face when they go to the doctors appointments, of which they are many. She barely feels a rush when the doctors announce there don’t seem to be any long-term health problems present from her early arrival into the world, and she is almost jealous of the way Oliver’s shoulders sag with relief and the breath leaves his body. She feels detached, and she looks at the baby sprawled on her back on the examination table who is clinging to her father’s hand with her tiny fingers and she looks at her mother with expectation. _Love me. Hold me. I am living for this. I am living for you._

Felicity stares back.

She feels nothing except hatred at herself.

–

“Is there any chance you could maybe come and stay for a while?”

She hears Oliver talking on the phone, his tone hushed because he’s in the baby’s room, and she hovers outside the door, listening to his heartbroken tone as he whispers into his phone.

“I just..I’m really worried about her, and I can’t seem to get through to her.”

This is a first, she realises. He is worried about the baby and he hasn’t told her. Usually he tells her regardless of whether or not she shows any interest. Maybe she’s losing him as well as the baby.

“I think she really needs her mother for this.”

That’s a kick in the gut. She knows she’s terrible at this, that she can hardly be called a mother, but now Oliver is asking someone else to come and parent their child because she isn’t doing it, and now she wants to cry. Again.

“Thank you, Donna. Let me know when your flight gets in, I’ll come pick you up.”

The whole conversation shifts, and Felicity realises that he isn’t worried about the baby.

He’s worried about her.

–

“Felicity, take the baby.”

Her mother’s arms-deep in the dishwasher, lining up the dishes. Felicity’s folding the laundry. Donna’s been here for three days, and the house is starting to feel in order again. She dotes on her granddaughter and Felicity gets an extra hour of sleep a day, and things are feeling calmer, if not better. She can see why people hire nannies, something she was once firmly against, but if it means the baby is cared for and she can try to repair herself with the extra time, maybe she can-

“Felicity, your baby’s crying. Go pick her up.”

She pauses with the laundry, looking over to the bassinet and she realises that she is, in fact, crying. She’s numb to the sound now. It doesn’t make her body ache. It’s just a noise.

“Oliver?” she calls out. “We’re in the kitchen, can you just-”

“OLIVER QUEEN, DO NOT PICK UP THAT BABY!” Donna calls out, far louder than Felicity had because Oliver is halfway across the living room and they can both see him freeze from the open-plan kitchen. Everyone freezes, apart from the baby, who cries. Donna fixes her gaze on her daughter and nods towards the bassinet. “Felicity, I want to see you pick up your baby.”

She can feel their eyes on her so she does it. She crosses the room, awkwardly lifts her baby out of the bassinet and holds her in her arms.

She looks at her face, her angry, hurt face that she was left to cry for any period of time because her father never left her to cry. Felicity left her to cry a lot of the time. She holds this baby in her arms and looks into her crystal blue eyes that are no longer newborn dark-blue and she wonders when they changed. She never noticed. How long have her baby’s eyes been a different colour from what she remembers? She looks so much like Oliver now, except from the helplessness in her eyes that is exactly what she looks at in the mirror.  She looks at the little hand that reaches for her, tries to bring her closer, and her heart doesn’t warm. It breaks.

She sinks to the couch, tears falling onto her cheeks and looking at the baby in her arms. Oliver’s there, his hand on her shoulder, and she finds his eyes properly for the first time in months.

“Why don’t I feel anything?”

–

The following day, she finds herself in the doctor’s office with her mother and her husband, and she tries not to feel like she’s a child again. Except her mother’s holding her hand and Oliver’s hand is on her knee and they are giving her this support but she doesn’t deserve it. The baby is with Thea at home.

The doctor starts talking about depression, and she scoffs at the idea. She’s not depressed. She’s never had problems with depression, and this isn’t a reason to have it. She survived her father abandoning her at a young age, survived teenage arguments with her mother, survived childhood bullies, survived losing her boyfriend to suicide (apparently), and survived living a double life as essentially a superhero’s Girl Wednesday.

She’s not going to be depressed about having a baby.

Except they give her a list and of symptoms and ask her to confirm if she’s been experiencing any of them. _Lack of interest in your baby. Negative feelings towards your baby. Worried about hurting your baby. Lack of concern for yourself. Loss of pleasure. Lack of energy and motivation. Feelings of worthlessness and guilt. Changes in appetite or weight. Sleeping more or less than usual. Recurrent thoughts of death or suicide._

She slides the list back to the doctor.

“All of them.”

–

Things change after that.

–

They go home with a list of self-help tips first, ways that they can help each other, because Felicity straight out refuses medication because she will not be drugged to love her child. She wants to love her, she just doesn’t feel it.

Donna stays with them, quits her job and moves into a guest room. Oliver takes a sabbatical from work. They sit together and work on a list of things that need to happen daily, weekly, monthly. They work on targets, goals, and suddenly, Felicity feels a bit more in control and she does like control.

Netflix is banned from the bedroom. Each night they go to bed together and make an effort to curl up with each other. Physical contact is a starting point to reconnection, and while they don’t make love, they do hold each other as they fall asleep. When the baby cries, they both get up and go into her room. Oliver feeds her, and she sits on the arm of the nursing chair and watches, and sometimes she falls asleep against his shoulder, but she makes the effort to look - really look - at her baby girl.

They kiss each morning. After a few days, it already feels like a necessity and not a routine. He cleans his teeth while she showers. She gets herself up, showered and dressed every day before leaving the room because she realises that sitting around in her pyjamas with half-brushed hair isn’t helping her feel any better about herself.

They jog. Together. The baby goes with them. She doesn’t realise that they got some sport-functioned stroller that Oliver’s been running with the baby to get her to sleep when she’s fussy. She feels bad for not knowing that, but he goes at a slower pace more suited to her new body and they go a little further each time. It ends with a slow evening walk back to the house. Three weeks in, he bends to tie his shoe and she places her hands on the stroller, leans over and adjusts the baby’s blanket as it’s getting colder out and doesn’t give the stroller handles back to him when they resume their walk. He says nothing but she knows he’s smiling more than he usually is.

It feels nice. That’s definitely an improvement.

–

She watches him do everything.

Then she starts to do it herself.

–

Four months in, the baby’s making sounds. Donna still lives with them. It’s a welcoming comfort and she’s bonded with her in ways she’d never really expected that she would with her mother. They don’t overlap and drive each other insane, but she’s glad that she has her mother there, because when everything goes to shit, it turns out that you really, really do need your mom.

Especially when Oliver takes the baby to Diggle’s house one night, and they open a bottle of wine and she cries as her mother tells her about her three-month stint with postpartum depression.

–

“Mah.”

The sound comes unexpectedly from the baby’s lips when Oliver’s bathing her in the sink one day. The sink’s huge and the baby’s still small, and it’s a lot quicker when they don’t want to fuss with running the tub. Felicity’s on the neighbouring counter, making lunch, and Donna’s out in the utility room with the laundry. The room is silent, and Felicity lifts her head slowly, cautiously.

“What’s that, baby?” Oliver mumbles, as he does with every sound she makes because he can’t resist luring her into talking and babbling like Felicity used to as a second nature and now does as a habit of stress.

“Mah!”

“Uhh…Felicity…she’s pointing at you,” Oliver says with a small breath of a laugh.

She turns slowly, carefully, and sure enough, the baby is sat in the sink, reaching out a bubble covered hand for ‘mah’ and there’s a huge smile on her little face that she’s never really taken any joy in before.

“Mah!” she repeats again, opening and closing her hand in a way that they’ve decided means ‘more’ because she does it over and over while she eats solid food now.

“Is she…talking? Is she actually…talking?” Felicity mumbles.

“She’s talking to _you_ ,” Oliver sighs with delight.

“Mahmahmahmahmah,” the baby declares and slaps her hands down on the water, splashing Oliver, because she’s not getting attention from the person she wants it from.

Felicity’s across the room in seconds. Sandwiches are forgotten as she lifts the little girl from the sink, soaking wet and doused in bubbles, and pulls her in against her chest. “Mama, that’s right,” Felicity says, and her tears are spilling in ways they never have through this entire first year ordeal they’re suffering with, and for the first time since her baby is born she feels a warmth in her chest.

She feels love.

She isn’t sure when she slides to her knees, but she sets her back against the kitchen cupboards and she holds her daughter in her arms and cuddles her, and she is too overwhelmed by this blossoming emotion in her ribcage to feel hatred for herself that she hasn’t felt this sooner. For the first time, she appreciates this warm, wriggling body that babbles ‘mama’ in her ear places podgy hands against her cheeks.

“My little girl,” she sobs, as she comes to accept her love for this tiny being she created, even if she didn’t feel that miraculous in the start. She feels the love that has radiated from her girl - her daughter - ever since the beginning, and she wonders if this is the rush that people usually feel in the seconds after their child is born.

Her shirt is soaked with bubbles, but she doesn’t look for her mother, doesn’t look for her husband, she just sits on the floor, and holds her daughter as she’s wanted to for months.

–

Donna comes into the kitchen moments after she hears Felicity’s cries. She first asks if everything is okay, coming to a standstill beside Oliver as he looks down at his wife and child with tears of his own. Then she realises she can hear her granddaughter speaking and Felicity’s crying about love for the first time in who knew how long. She’s telling her daughter that she’ll do better, that she wants her, that she loves her, and it brings tears to them all.

“Yeah,” Oliver chokes out, nodding without taking his eyes off his family. “Yeah, everything’s okay.”


	42. Choice

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> devanrlanier said: okay i have a prompt. After defeating Damian darhk, oliver is telling him about the amazing daughter he chose to leave. and how she changed his life. and maybe have it get to damian a little bit. i don’t know i just want to see Oliver tell this man how much he missed out on with felicity and how much he loves is daughter. work your magic!

“Your biggest mistake will be starting a family.”

Oliver looks up from the bow he’s replacing in it’s case. He has no need for it now. Damien Darhk’s reign of terror on Starling City is over, and the magical deviant is being turned over to the League of Assassins. All that’s left to do now is wait for Malcolm himself to arrive and take his new prisoner away. While many debts have died with the ascension of a new Ra’s, the crimes of Darhk are unforgivable, and it’s time for him to face his judgement for that.

Oliver says nothing, but he follows Darhk’s gaze to where he’s looking at Felicity.

“You tell yourself that a family will calm the storm inside you, but you’re wrong.”

He’s only glad that Felicity is so far away from his captive state that she can’t hear what’s being said. She’s got her back turned, focused on her computers, and she won’t move until the League have made contact. With that in mind, he turns back to Darhk and approaches the chains that hold him.

“You don’t even have the right to look at her,” he snarls.

“That’s my daughter,” Darhk reminds him.

“No, you gave up that right a long time ago,” Oliver tells him in a low tone. “You don’t get to call her ‘yours’ anymore.”

“But you do,” Darhk smiles calmly.

“She’s a good woman,” he states. “Good women have to be earned. You don’t just get to show up in their lives and stake a claim.”

“Isn’t that exactly what you did, Mr. Queen?”

He wants to strike him, but he doesn’t want to give him the satisfaction. “What I did was choose her. Because of you, and what you did to her, all she ever wanted was to be chosen, for someone to stay for her, and you did that to her. You gave her every insecurity she has, you took away her childhood and to what end? She’s perfect anyway.”

“Nobody’s perfect,” Darhk insists.

“You’ll never see it,” Oliver shakes his head. “You had your chance to raise a beautiful daughter and you threw it away, and you will never get to know the priviledge it is to have Felicity Smoak love you.”

Darhk barely reacts, Oliver wants to throttle him just for the sheer fact that he doesn’t understand what he’s losing. “Love is a weakness.”

“Love is a blessing,” Oliver corrects him. “ _She_ is a blessing.”

“You think you’ve got it all figured out,” Darhk taunts. “You think you’ve figured out how to balance the Green Arrow with Oliver Queen, but you’re wrong,” his voice turns venomous. “One night, your repercussions will come for you, and will be faced with a choice, and you will turn and you will leave. You will leave the woman you claim to love, you will tuck your daughter into bed and you will never look back. You will take my family and you will leave them and-”

“ _They are not your family_!” he snarls, slamming his hand into the nearest surface.

“She was mine long before she was yours.”

“They aren’t yours anymore,” Oliver snaps at him. “Felicity and Donna Smoak are _my_ family now, and I will _never_ leave them like you did.”

“Until you do,” Darhk states.

“You had two wonderful girls in your life, and they deserved so much better than you. They flourished without you. They are a mother and a daughter who only ever wanted to rebuild the family that you destroyed when you left them, and I am going to give them that.” Oliver insists.

“You will be nothing as a man with them holding you down.”

“I won’t be a man without them.”

He turns, leaving Darhk to his cynicism, and goes over to the small amount of privacy that Felicity’s computer corner allows her. He stands behind her chair, his arms falling around her shoulders as she leans her head back against his stomach, and he finally allows his breathing to level out.

“You left your comms unit in,” Felicity says quietly, and his eyes slam close.

“I’m sorry, you shouldn’t have heard that,” he whispers back.

“No, I’m glad I did,” she says, and she turns the chair, getting up and pulling herself into his embrace. He holds her because he doesn’t know how not to. “I needed to hear that.”

“He shouldn’t have-”

“I didn’t mean what he said,” she murmurs, and his breath hitches.

“I meant every word,” he assures her, tightening his arms around her. “When we… _If_ we have a family, I won’t ever leave you. I won’t walk away from that.”

“I know,” she whispers.

“No, I need you to trust me on that,” Oliver insists. “If there is ever a choice between this life and my family, I need you to know that I will always choose you.”

“I know,” she repeats, bringing her hands up to frame his face. “And _when_ we have a family, I know you’ll be as devoted to them as you are to me.”

Her lips touch to his, and when she brings his hand down to her stomach he gasps into the kiss, presses his hand to the firm skin beneath his touch, and pulls her even closer.

He makes a choice.

He chooses his family.


	43. Senseless and Shoeless

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> aussieforgood said: Olicity Prompt: Felicity is high after taking a painkiller (why she needs it I leave up to you) and hilarity ensues. Also it can be before or after they get together…I leave that up to your amazing muse.
> 
> ellefraser17 said: Fic prompt for you. Anything you want but it has to include the following dialogue: “Mirror, mirror, on the wall…” accompanied with “Who has the greatest ass of all.”
> 
> Anonymous said: Drunk Felicity “Your lips taste like little pillow mountains.”
> 
> Note: Seeing this in 3x01

“Oliver. Ollllllliver. Oooooooliver.”

“You okay?” He’s on his feet, crossing the area of workstations in the foundry to where she was sat on their medical table with her feet swinging over the edge of it. When he stands before her, he tries not to think too much about how her legs are parted and he can stand right between them, his hands braced on either side of her thighs.

“Your name has the word ‘liver’ in it,” she giggles.

He bites back the smile, trying to coat it in concern, but the oxycodone they’ve given her after Diggle put a few well placed stitches under her hair is clearly taking care of her pain levels now. “It does,” he nods, humouring her.

“You have a body part in your name,” she tells him, her tone amazed. “Like a whole liver inside you.” Her eyes widen. “Do you have an actual liver too? ‘Cause they’re important, but I hear they grow back if you donate it, but I think you can only donate half.” She starts searching beneath his suit jacket, her hands running over his shirt in a way that makes him take a breath because this is how he’d originally wanted the night to end.

“Having fun?” he asks with an arched eyebrow.

She looks up at him, her face serious. “I think you have a liver, Oh-liver,” she tells him.

He can’t help but smile, sweeping her hair back over her shoulders, tucking it behind her ear. “That’s good to hear, I was getting worried,” he tells her, knowing she’s too gone on the painkillers to realise what he was actually worried about. She’s staring at him like he’s an actual god, carved by angels (that’s what the Oxy had helped her say ten minutes ago) and he’s still shaken from carrying her unconscious form across the city, terrified he was going to lose her.

Her head tilts thoughtfully, then she frowns with a curiosity at him. “My name has ‘city’ in it,” she notices. “Is that why you save me? ‘Cause I’m a city. And you’re all ‘don’t fail the city’,” she repeats in a terrible mimic of his growly voice.

One of her swinging feet is stroking the back of his calf, he’s trying not to enjoy it but it’s really, really nice. “You know why I save you,” he tells her softly, one of his hands lingering on her cheek, and he remembers a time not that long ago when she leaned into him the same way she does now. This time, he feels more entitled to it, that he’s allowed to linger because of his intentions with the date, and his thumb strokes over the creamy skin on her cheek.

She makes a sound similar to a cat purring, and it makes his smile grow, makes his heart swell for her, kinda makes him want to call her kitten or something else that will draw a threatening glare from her eyes. “You took me on a date tonight,” she tells him.

“I did,” he murmurs. “I didn’t plan on this happening tonight.”

“No one plans on getting blown on a first date,” she blurts out, then her eyes widen. “Did I just say that?”

“Yeah, you did,” he laughs gently, his head dipping slightly.

“I am so bad at talking,” she decides. “But you aren’t bad at dating. You did good.”

“Until we got blown up,” he finishes for her.

“How did we get here?” she asks with a frown, looking around as if she’s noticing the foundry for the first time.

“I carried you,” he tells her.

Felicity’s face softens, and she looks at him like a six year old might look at a puppy. “You carried me all the way here.” He nods, and she actually wells up. “You really do love me for real, don’t you?”

“Yeah,” he whispers through an exhale.

“I do too,” she tells him, actually blushing like a shy school girl. “Love you, not me. But I do love me, ‘cause it’s important to love yourself.” She looks down and dips her head forward. “Where are my shoes?”

“Lost,” he chokes out, because she just told him that she loves him and okay, she’s high on painkillers, but it still counts, right? She loves him.

“Oh,” she whispers sadly, leaning forward so her head is nestled against his stomach now. “They were really good shoes.”

“They were,” he agrees, and he may not remember which shoes they were, but he does remember what they did to her legs and he’s a firm supporter of them for that.

He moves his hands over her spine, feeling her wrap her arms around his torso as she leaned into him. Then her hands start wandering lower, lower… “Felicity…”

“Hmmm?” she murmurs.

“I don’t think you want to be doing that right now,” he says, trying to take a step back.

“I do,” she whines. “I want to do it all the time. I think about touching you like eighty percent of the day.”

“Eighty percent?” he questions.

“I sleep a little bit,” she explains.

Oliver can’t help himself, he closes the gap and embraces her completely, crushing her against him and only hoping that this level of painkillers are shielding her from how hard he’s holding her, but she’s just so HER that he can’t resist. Even now, with two stitches hidden beneath her hair, a roughed up dress and missing shoes, she’s herself. She’s remarkable. She’s perfect. She’s—

“Felicity?”

Her hands are straying again, and this time it’s far less innocent than his hips.

Her fingertips grasp into his ass cheeks and he jumps. Unfortunately, this only lands him closer to her. “Wha-what are you doing?” he asks her, trying to pry her hands away but she’s actually got a firm grip on him. “Felicity-”

“Mirror mirror on the wall, who has the greatest ass of them all?” she declares, and with that he does manage to pry her hands away, and step back to put at least a foot of space between them,

“Alright, enough of that,” he tells her, ignoring her disappointed pout. “You need to lie down for a while until the Oxy wears off, then we’re going to get you home.”

“Will you walk me home?” she asks hopefully.

“I’m driving you home,” he assures her. “You don’t have shoes on, remember.”

“Oh,” she looks down at her feet again. “So you’re not going to walk me too my door? ‘Cause I thought that was a first date thing and I kinda imagined we’d have this great dinner and then you’d walk me to my door and-”

“-and we’d kiss,” he finishes for her.

She looks up at him, amazed that he’s understanding her. “Yeah.”

“I imagined that too,” he tells her, and his hand creeps to her cheek again and dammit, when did he start gravitating to her so much? “But that’s not going to happen tonight.”

“Oh,” she says, the disappointment evident in her tone.

“We’re going to have a do-over,” he explains. “Digg’s having a baby any day now, so I think we should take a few weeks off as well, focus on daytime work and…have a do-ver. A new dinner, definitely a new restaurant…” she looks up with a grin at that. They can hardly go to the same restaurant. “You can wear shoes,” he adds with a responding giggle from her. “Then I’ll walk you to your door, and I’ll kiss you goodnight.”

“And if I invite you inside?” she asks with a tilt of her head.

“I guess we’ll see, won’t we?” he teases her. Her smile is brilliant, and when he dips his head to kiss her forehead, she makes a contented sound that he loves. Her arms wind around him again and this time it’s not sneaky, it’s assuring.

“Forehead kisses are nice,” she whispers. “Your lips are like pillow mountains. I bet you kiss real good.”

“I do,” he says smugly, pecking his lips to her forehead once more (since she likes it that much) before he just holds her like he’s been wanting to for a long time.

“I really, really want to kiss you, Oliver,” she tells him, propping her chin on his chest and looking up at him.

He thinks he can spend the rest of his life wrapped up in her like this. The idea isn’t as frightening as he thought it might be. “I want to kiss you too,” he sighs. “But I want you to remember it when we do, okay?”

“Okay,” she agrees, trying to nod but in this position it just becomes a nuzzle against his chest. “So we’re okay? After the whole blowing up thing?” she checks. “It’s not a sign that we’re doomed or cursed?”

“We’re okay,” he assures her. “We’re going to be great.”


	44. Scandal

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> thetaufactor said: My Prompt: What if a Paparazzi caught Felicity kissing the Green Arrow and it appears all over the news the day after, claiming that miss smoak is cheating on Oliver with him? … What if Oliver founds out and tease her about it??

She’s trending on Twitter.

And Facebook.

Even people are on MySpace are talking about her, and she shouldn’t even know that because no one uses MySpace anymore.

Felicity Smoak is famous, and not for her actual talents as CEO of Palmer Tech, but because someone snapped a picture of her in a rather incredibly lip-lock with the Green Arrow last night, and now the entire city is accusing her of adultery.

“It _is_ a great picture,” is all Oliver can say in defence, as they run it again on the morning news and she pulls a pillow over her face and screams into it. “Felicity, it’s not that bad-”

“They’re calling me a cheater!”

“So does Thea when you play scrabble-”

“Not _that_ kind of cheater, Oliver!”

She gets up from the couch, storming over to the coffee machine with the deluded belief that caffeine might actually help her in this situation. He leans over the back of the couch, watching her slam cabinet doors and crash her mug against the worktop.

“Felicity, they’ll forget about it by the end of the week.”

“Have you even considered what this is going to do to you?” she points out to him.

“What do you mean?”

“You’re a victim in all this-”

“I’m not a victim, I enjoyed it,” he grins at her.

“What about your campaign?” she asks. “You’ll have to give a statement about your deep intense feelings about me cheating on your with a masked man.”

“But I am the masked man,” he says with a delicious tease.

She glares at him.

“Felicity, it’s going to be fine.”

“You’re running for mayor, Oliver, this is not what you need right now!”

“I know what I need right now,” he decides, following her to the kitchen and stepping up behind her, pressing his lips to the back of her neck.

“Do _not_ try to have sex with me right now,” she tells him sharply.

“Felicity-”

“That’s what got us into this situation in the first place.”

“At least they didn’t get a picture of that,” he jokes, planting a sloppier kiss against her throat.

“Oliver!” she says, turning in her arms and giving him a horrified expression. “Oh god, what if they did? Oh _god_ , no. Please tell me they didn’t get a picture of that. What if they were watching us? What if-”

“Then we deal with it,” he tells her, his hands skating over her sides. “Besides, no mayoral campaign is complete without a sex scandal.”


	45. Fields of Gold

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Okay, a few people have prompted the death of Donna. I’ve had a few requests to do this in different ways, through enemies and accidents, but I chose to do this in a way that’s very personal for me, and to do this how I lost my own mother. If anyone wants not to read it for that reason, I totally understand, but this is my story. Only my story didn’t have an Oliver.

It’s 5.07am when her phone rings.

She knows what the call is about before she answers it. There’s only one reason for her phone to ring at this time in the morning.

She’s gone.

–

They’re certain she’s going to survive it. She had a brush with breast cancer when Felicity was fourteen, but she survived as she always survived everything threw at her. Nothing takes a Smoak woman down easily, and Donna battles breast cancer like the strong woman she always has been. Felicity feels her life sharply shift from childhood to adulthood with no in between stage, but after eight months of tension, Donna gets the all clear. They celebrate. Life goes on.

Last year she started getting pain in her back. Then in her head. Then she goes for a scan and her body lights up like a Queen family Christmas tree. There are tumours in her brain, along her spine, in her liver. Still, they call it breast cancer. Secondary breast cancer. The type of breast cancer that comes back with a vengeance and doesn’t give in. The tests happen in the days before Christmas, and they wait until the first week of January for those urgent results that tell them whether surgery is an option or not.

“Three weeks,” Donna tells her, when she enters her mother’s apartment after a frantic message that she needed to be at home.

“Three weeks until the surgery? That’s too long to wait,” Felicity decides, making plans as she always does. “I’ll talk to Oliver, his family have connections with the doctors, we’ll find you someone else–”

“Three weeks to live, Felicity.”

–

Felicity can’t go home. She stays in Vegas to be with her mother. She offers to get her to Starling, where she can be in a better hospice with better doctors, but she wants to live her last days in the city she loves and Felicity can’t fault her for that request. It means she’s alone, however, and as much as she wishes that Oliver were at her side, she needs someone who knows the company to step in until she can return home and he takes care of everything for her. They talk on the phone every day. It’s not enough, but it’s all they have.

–

Three weeks passes. Donna thrives. Determination does far better work than the doctors anticipate, and all Felicity can think is that this is another day she has with her mother. There’s time to make amends, to bridge all the gaps, to say all her apologies, and this is time that she needs. She’s been away from home for far too long, and at the end of the day, all Donna wants is what her life had been dedicated to; the two of them.

–

After initially snapping awake at the sound of her phone ringing, she glances at the caller ID and the time and stares at it. Her phone has been awake and charging through the night since she came back to Vegas, not wanting to miss any calls that came through in the middle of the night, and that was when she had most of her whispered conversations with Oliver as she curled into her childhood bed and tried to sleep. She blindly sat up, staring at the caller ID, suddenly hyper-aware of every part of her body, every breath, every heartbeat. It pounds in her ears, blood rushing to the sudden ache in her stomach as she reads the name of the hospice her mother is in.

The call cuts out suddenly, and she knows she should call back. She knows she should immediately hit redial, but she doesn’t. She stares at her phone, because she wants to be prepared when they call back. Because they will. They don’t have anyone else to call, so they will call her back until she answers. They’re going to call her back and then she’ll be ready, she’ll be prepared to hear those words, but…but how? How can she prepare herself for the words when she isn’t sure what they’ll say? How they phrase it will change everything. She knows what she’s about to be told, but she doesn’t know how she’ll hear it. Will this be a stranger mindlessly telling her the details, or a stranger comforting her in her darkest hour?

Either way, she’s going to hear the worst news of her life from a total stranger.

Her phone rings again. She doesn’t have an excuse not to answer it this time because she’s upright, wide awake, and her feet are swinging off the edge of the bed - she left her socks on last night, never usually does that - and her feet hit the floor a few seconds ago - the carpet is the same colour as it was when they first moved in her after her father left - and the phone is ringing and ringing and ringing and she can’t answer it because when she does it’s certain. When she hears those words everything is going to change and nothing’s going to be the same because those words can’t be unheard.

So she doesn’t know why she his the call accept button and she certainly doesn’t know why she’s bringing the phone to her ear and then her voice is shaking as she answers. “Hello?”

“Felicity Smoak?”

“Yes, that’s me,” she whispers.

This is it. She knows.

“I’m calling regarding your mother. I’m afraid to say she passed away early this morning.”

She knew it.

She still doesn’t understand it.

She wasn’t there.

–

When Felicity last sees her mother, what remains of her short hair is obscured by a bright blue headscarf that covers the bald patches. Chemo robbed her of the most precious thing she owned - her hair. She could deal with the surgical scars, but watching her hair fall out is something that they barely make it through. They both cry when they shave it off, but they cover her head with fashionable scarves, and todays is a bright blue one that has sequins lining the edges. It’s quite bohemian in nature, and suits Donna in a way that it never usually would.

She’s only allowed to be there in visiting hours, which means she can’t be there after seven in the evenings. She protests at first, trying to use the insistence to transfer her to Starling when she’s officially admitted for end of life care, because at least if she’s in Starling she can use her influence and Oliver’s to extend those visiting hours, but Donna insists it fine. She’s usually drifting off to sleep as Felicity prepares to leave each night, so it’s not a problem.

But the last time she sees her is a Monday afternoon. They have specialists that come in, relief workers who bring treats like therapy animals and aromatherapy, and things that supposedly ease the pain of dying. Donna enjoys it, and on that last afternoon she sits in a chair beside the window and enjoys a hand massage with some kind of lavender oils that mask the scents of medication. Felicity sits cross legged on the edge of her mother’s bed and thumbs through one of the trashy magazines that she’s been reading.

And she looks up and sees her mother as if she were looking at an old woman. For all their disputes over the years, this woman raised her, passed on her strength, showed her what it was to hold something you loved and fight for it at every turn. Felicity falls in love with her mother the same way she imagines her mother did the first time she held her as a newborn, and she wonders how many people actually get to experience that. Her mother brought her into this world, now she must guide her mother out of it.

Felicity hates goodbyes. She’s afraid of what will happen when she has to say this goodbye.

She pauses before she goes this time, tomorrow she won’t be visiting. Tomorrow she has to deal with the lawyers, and the hospital, because Donna has exceeded her end of life care allowance and now Felicity has to argue with the health insurance company, and at a complete standstill, she’s arranging for Oliver to send her the money first thing in the morning to pay for another month of care.

“Are visiting hours over?” Donna rasps as Felicity buttons up her coat and pushes her bag closed.

“Yeah,” she whispers back. The room’s quiet, the TV playing in the corner. There’s one of the early Harry Potter movies on, they’ve been showing one a week on whatever channel is on, and today is the second movie. Donna’s enjoyed it so much she’s been looking forward to watching the third one next week. “Do you need anything before I leave for the night?” she asks.

“I’m okay, baby girl,” she assures her, her voice tired and soft - that’s no different. These days she’s always tired, but always gentle. Always Mom. She pats Felicity’s hand, but there’s something distantin her tone that unsettles her. She suddenly can’t bring herself to move her feet from the ground.

“Mom, I don’t have to take care of these things tomorrow,” she says. She has to, but she’ll make allowances if she needs to. “I can be here tomorrow, if you want me to come.”

“You’ll do no such thing,” she tells her. “You need to get these things arranged, so do what you need to do, and if you finish in time, you can come have dinner here with me,” she decides.

“I’ll call you between meetings, if I can,” she says fiercely.

“If there’s one thing you’re good at, it’s making a plan. Besides, you’ve been running yourself into the ground lately and you need a break too. If you make yourself sick they won’t let you in here.” She knows that’s a real threat. Any hint of illness and she won’t be allowed to see her mother because it will, no lies necessary, kill her faster.

“I am taking care of myself, Mom,” she assures her.

“No, you’re not,” she says knowingly. “Oliver takes care of you, you’re too busy taking care of me.”

“I want to take care of you,” she says quietly. “You always took care of me.”

“You were always a good girl, Felicity,” Donna whispers, and she cups her hands to Felicity’s cheeks. “My good, beautiful, clever girl. So clever. I am so proud of you.”

There are tears in both their eyes, and she leans in and kisses her mother’s cheek. “Stop it, I’m only going to be away for a day. I’ll be back on Wednesday, and you’ve got that hydrotherapy pool thing tomorrow anyway.”

“Closest I’ll get to a hot tub in this place,” Donna smiles, and kisses her daughter’s forehead. “Go on, sweetheart. I love you.”

Felicity returns the sentiment, hugging her back as cautiously as she could around the medical equipment, and she hovers in the doorway for just a moment as she watches her mother lie on her side and take out her phone. She does that a lot now that Felicity’s shown her how to look at photographs on it. Meeting her mother’s eyes one more time, she gives her a smile and a small wave, and heads out for the night.

–

“She passed early this morning. I’m so sorry,” the nurse tells her, when all she could do was splutter out a doubtful response.

“When?” she finds herself asking, because she was supposed to get a call when it was time to come in and she hasn’t missed any other calls.

“Five o’clock.”

Her eyes flicker to the bedside clock which illuminates the green digits of 5.07am. It’s still 5.07am. She died seven minutes ago.

“But…I wasn’t there,” she argues weakly as her voice cracks. There’s a lump in her throat that’s choking her, making it hard for her to draw in enough air to breathe, but god, she’s panting and her heart’s racing and she can’t breathe. “I didn’t get to see her.”

I didn’t get to see her. That’s the only argument she has against her death. She can’t be dead because she wasn’t there and she didn’t get to see her and she didn’t get to bury her face into one of her mother’s hugs one more time. She didn’t get to feel her fuzzy hair tickling her neck, didn’t get to feel her lips on her cheek and her soft voice in her ear. She didn’t get to see her smile. She didn’t get to experience any of that for the last time because she didn’t think it was going to be the last time. She was supposed to be going back this morning to spend the day with her. She didn’t have to say goodbye to her last time because she was going to see her today and she was going to have the extra month of care and she was going to be fine.

The nurse is speaking to her, talking about arrangements and collection of the death certificate, but all Felicity can hear is her own breath. She couldn’t really have just…died…could she?

But she has.

She closes her phone a short while after. She sits in the darkness of her bedroom, the only light coming from the alarm clock numbers and the screen of her phone. It’s 5.09am and her mother is dead. She hasn’t felt this helpless since Oliver went to fight Ra’s, and this is it, the final part of her childhood is officially over because the only parent who ever nurtured it has slipped away where she can no longer see, hear or reach her. It’s 5.09 in the morning and she’s alone in her old room and her mother is dead and she can’t remember if the last thing she said to her was ‘I love you’ or just ‘love you’ and that’s suddenly the most important thing in the world.

There’s so much to do now. She has to go to the hospice and collect her mother’s things. Was she still smiling the last time she saw her? She has to get something for the funeral, she didn’t bring those kind of clothes with her. What was she wearing in the hospice, did she need to take an outfit for her? She needs to find out what was involved in planning a funeral. Does she still have that favourite blue dress she wore to her cousin’s wedding last year? She needs to contact her friends from work. When she was four years old and scared of starting kindergarten, had she clung to her left leg or her right leg? She needs to get out of bed and get dressed and just do something because it’s 5.11am and her mother is dead and all she’s doing it sitting in the bed she used to be tucked into that’s two miles away from where she should have been.

And she’s alone.

The man she loves and her friends are hundreds of miles away in Starling City, and she’s in Vegas and she’s…alone. She could call them, and they’ll answer at any time of day or night, and she knows that Oliver will definitely be awake, but she doesn’t think she can say the words. She doesn’t think she can do it. She can’t go to the people she cares about and tell them that her mother’s gone. She can’t do it.

–

Her phone rings all morning. She doesn’t answer it.

She goes to the hospice, and sits swamped in her winter jacket in the middle of summer while they pass her the certificate of death she needs to take to the registrar and then she gets a back which has her mother’s clothes, her jewellery, her headscarves, her phone and the Bagpuss plush that she clung to like a child in her final days.

Felicity takes the plush toy, remembering how she spent months tracking it down in time for her mother’s birthday five years ago. She paid for it with her first real paycheck from Queen Consolidated. It had cost a small fortune. It had been worth it.

–

Her phone rings all afternoon. She doesn’t answer.

She calls her cousins on the west coast, the only family they have. She calls the hotel where her mother used to work. She calls her mother’s friends. She calls her mother’s landlord.

And then she sits, and she has nothing to do.

Nowhere to be.

No one to lean on.

No one to take care of.

And she cries.

–

The door was knocking. She didn’t hear it until someone was shouting at her name. She’d emptied a bottle of wine, put on her pyjamas, and retreated to the couch as she looked around the tiny apartment she’d once called home. The landlord had considered them loyal tenants enough to give her the last five months of the lease before having to move her mother’s possessions out, but then that’d be it.

She isn’t sure who’d have come here looking for her, but when she opens the door the person she wants most is right there.

“Oliver,” she whispers.

“You didn’t answer your phone,” he tells her. “I figured she…you always answer your phone…”

“I wasn’t there,” she whimpers and she breaks.

She’s in his arms, she’s no longer alone, but it still hurts.

She’s not sure it’ll ever stop hurting.

–

This is the longest she’s ever gone without seeing Oliver, and their first night back together is spent with him embracing her in her childhood bed, the two of them curled together in the single bed because she can’t face the idea of sleeping in her mother’s room. Her chest aches, her throat is sore from crying, and it’s nearly two in the morning before she’s cried herself into silence. He hasn’t left her side since he arrived, and she doesn’t even know how he got there, just that he is there and she can’t let him go.

“I should have been with her,” she croaks into his chest. “She died alone, and I wasn’t there-”

“She’s not in pain any more,” he assures her. “She held on for so long, she was so brave…”

“But she was alone, she didn’t deserve that.”

“Felicity, it’s…a hard thing to watch,” he whispers.

“I didn’t get to say goodbye,” she says with a single sob. “I can’t remember what I last said to her. I wasn’t…I’m not ready. I’m…I’m not done needing a mom yet.”

–

When Oliver’s mother died, he ran to the deepest parts of the city to hide from what was happening.

When Felicity’s mother dies, he remains at her side for every moment of it.

She runs to him.

–

On the morning of her mother’s funeral, Felicity stands in the bathroom in a simple black dress, her blow-dried hair in steady waves around her shoulders. It’s been a week. Seven days and four hours since that dreaded phone call to say she’d lost her mother, and now her life is missing a significant lightness to it. She’s spent her week choosing flowers, selecting songs, and on the fourth day she broke down and found the letter her mother left her which made all those decisions for her. She loses it on day five and insists she can’t do this without her mother and Oliver catches her at two o’clock in the morning trying to get in contact with Malcolm or Nyssa about the Lazarus pit.

She catches her reflection in the mirror and the tears are back. Reaching for the hairbrush, she violently pulls her hair up into its signature ponytail and lathers it in too much hairspray. Oliver comes to the doorway in his suit and frowns. “Felicity…”

“I’m okay,” she tells him, forcing the tears back. “I just…looked too much like her with my hair down, I had to…” she wrings her hands, and he’s closing the gap between them, taking her hands in his own.

“The car’s here,” he says quietly. “Do you need a minute? I can ask them to wait.”

She shakes her head. She wants to get this over with, but she feels heartless for using those words.

–

She steps out of the car and expects around twenty people. Her mother’s social circle wasn’t very big, and not everyone could get the time off work since they all worked together, and they don’t have much family around. But she steps out of the funeral car after Oliver opens the door for her and she’s met with something more than a small crowd, at least double what she expected.

Everyone’s there.

Diggle’s there with Lyla, even toddler Sara in a bright pink dress that Donna sent for Christmas. Ray’s there with Sara and even the new gang they have which she’s not even sure she knows everyone from. Barry’s there with everyone she knows from Central City. Captain Lance is there in full uniform (she always suspects there was a thing between them once, it’s never mentioned), and Laurel’s there. Roy’s even there holding Thea’s hand. Every person she knows is there.

For her.

To support her.

When they ask for people to carry the coffin, they fall over themselves to volunteer. In the end, Felicity walks with Oliver holding her hand, and her mother’s coffin carried by Roy, Captain Lance, Diggle, Barry, Cisco and Ray. The men who care about her carry her mother on her final journey, and the man she loves holds her hand as she leads it.

“I don’t want to do this,” she says, hesitating in the doorway.

“She needs you to,” Oliver reminds her.

–

Most people went back home overnight, but the two end up back at the apartment early, only staying long enough to thank everyone for coming at the funeral. Later, Felicity will spend a lifetime thanking them, but tonight she doesn’t want to think that she just buried her mother, so she goes home, she lets Oliver direct her, changing her out of her dress, taking off her shoes, curling into his shirt, and balling up on the couch while Oliver calls a pizza they probably won’t eat and she sinks into the silence that comes with his embrace.

“I don’t know what my last words to her were,” she says when they settle in bed hours later. “I don’t know if I said ‘love you’ or ‘I love you’.”

“You said the most important word,” he assures her. “And she knew. She knew you love her.”

“How do you do it?” she asks. “How do you live in a world where your mom doesn’t exist?”

“You don’t,” he whispers, his eyes clouding over as he replies. “You have to build a new one.”

“I don’t think I can do that,” she confesses.

“You don’t have to do it yet,” he says, tucking her hair behind her ear and pressing his lips to her forehead. “One day it’ll feel okay, and you move forward from there. But it…it doesn’t have have to feel okay yet,” he assures her. “It’s okay that this hurts for as long as it does. Because she’s your mom, and she loved you, and that’s a lot to lose.”

“I wish I had one more day,” she whispers.

“One more day wouldn’t be enough,” he knows. “You’ll always want another day.”

He never tells her that he’s sorry. That’s implied. It’s more meaningful to know that he’ll be here to rebuild her after this loss.

Her mother’s dead. That’s a fact. One day she’ll marry and her mother won’t be there to help her pick her wedding dress, or to go help her prepare for her wedding day, or to meet her grandchildren, and she can’t lie that right now, it makes her want to do those things less. Because she knows how much those days meant to her mother, and it was never mentioned that she wouldn’t get to be there for them. The idea of being a wife and a mother without her mother there is frightening, but one day it’ll happen, and she’s not quite ready for one day when she’s desperately clinging to yesterday.

“You can do this,” he tells her, soft kisses dancing across her forehead as she wraps herself around him. “It’ll take time, but we’ll get there.”

“You can’t leave me,” she gasps.

“I’ll never leave you,” he assures her.

He never does, but she is never the same after her mother dies. She never heals fully. She moves forward, but never on.

Some losses cannot be survived.


	46. Fangirl Package

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> maaaaaaarts said:
> 
> So, I literally love everything you write and I’m a very hard person. Anyway, I was wondering If I can ask you a new prompt. I’d like to see Oliver (maybe at a party) pushing away some girls who tries to flirt with him and then he goes to Felicity and they dance in front of everyone. Thx :)

In hindsight, it was stupid to think that being Oliver Queen would suddenly generate less attention just because he’d embraced monogamy.

He still oozed sex with every step across a room, especially in a tuxedo that had Felicity weak at the knees, so of course the drinks girls were checking him out, and the wives of other benefactors, even. Better still, he was charming. He listened, he smiled, he laughed in the right places, he remembered the name of their sister’s friend’s cousin’s niece just to bring up in conversation that he was Oliver Queen and the world should melt at his feet.

And that’s how Felicity ended up hiding in a corner at her own charity benefit, avoiding the throws of twenty-something leggy models who were fawning over her boyfriend.

“So, Mr. Queen…”

“Tell me, Mr. Queen….”

“So impressive, Mr. Queen…”

She wanted to gag. She grumbled to herself, mimicking their high-pitched voices and even faking a dramatic hair flip to herself, but she almost jumped out of her skin when the movement revealed Diggle moving into her field of vision.

“Digg! Don’t do that?”

He blinked. “Don’t bring you wine?”

“Don’t scare me,” she corrected, eyeing up the second glass in his hand. “Definitely bring me wine.”

“What’s with the grumpy face?” he asked her, passing her the glass.

“You have to ask?” she huffed, directing her gaze back to Oliver and his harem of women.

Diggle followed her line of sight, then raised an eyebrow, looking back at her. “You know he’s just humoring them, right?”

“Oliver’s sense of humor is damaged,” she shot back. “Obviously he’s the most attractive man in the room - no offence to you, though, because the bowtie is incredibly dashing - but does he have to flaunt it?”

“He’s doing it to boost your sponsors,” Diggle pointed out. “This is the world Oliver knows, he was raised in it. He knows how to flash a time for an extra zero on a cheque. He just wants this event to be a success for you.”

Felicity went to answer, but the music struck up, and she was tempted to find a seat and just officially settle for the night. She’d done her conversations, done her speech, and really, she could just go upstairs right now and go to bed. That was the one benefit of hosting an event at the Queen mansion they’d bought back - you were never really that far away from a bed.

“Mr. Queen-”

“No, Mr. Queen-”

“Dance with me, Mr. Queen.”

Felicity just sighed, and Diggle put his free hand on her shoulder. “I’m not really a rom-com person,” he told her. “But isn’t this where you’re supposed to go fight for your man?”

“I can’t compete with that,” she said quietly.

And how could she? She didn’t even look the part at her own gala. Sure, she looked elegant in her forest-green gown, but every other dress in the room had some form of diamante patterning and she felt…boring in comparison.

“Mr. Queen-”

“Mr. Queen-”

“Ladies, I’m very flattered by the offers, but I’m sure you remember that I don’t dance,” Oliver shot them all down with another of his charming smiles, and Felicity fought the urge to roll her eyes when they all gave dramatic sounds of disappointment, all of them flashing bedroom eyes at him.

He escaped them at last, making his way over to Diggle and Felicity with a smile at them both. He didn’t say a word, just held out his hand to Felicity.

She raised an eyebrow. “Oh, now you need someone on your arm?” she challenged him, only half-bothered when it sounded bitter.

He wasn’t phased by her tone. “Dance with me.”

“You don’t dance,” she pointed out.

“I only dance with you,” he stated with a soft smile, and dammit, how did he do this to her?

Diggle took her glass from her, and she let Oliver lead her onto the dancefloor, much to the chagrin of the ladies he’d been talking too before. She felt their eyes upon them as they started to dance to the slow jazz, but Oliver’s eyes didn’t wander as he took up her and, his other dropping to her waist.

“You’re wearing my color,” he said with a knowing smile.

“Staking claim to the color green?” she challenged him, a more playful smile on her lips now.

“I can think of something else I’d rather stake a claim to,” he hinted, leaning in to brush the gentlest of kisses against her lips.

“I think it’s me who needs to stake a claim,” she pointed out, flickering her eyes to the side. “Your fangirls seem to be glaring.”

“Let them,” he said, his gaze not wavering. “They just see the suit and the money, they don’t ever hold a candle to you.”

“I was thinking I’d tell them about your bad habit of leaving wet towels on the bed,” she teased. “That should drive them away.”

“Evil woman, why do I love you?” he said, narrowing his eyes playfully.

“Something about being your light, I don’t really remember,” she dismissed.

“Weren’t paying attention?” he played along.

“Well, it wasn’t like it was important or anything,” she shrugged.

“Not like what happened tonight,” he pointed out.

Felicity frowned. “What do you mean, what happened tonight?”

He looked thoughtful for a moment, then dipped his head and made an awkward expression. He was playing around, she could tell. “Damn, my bad. It’s next weekend I’m planning to propose. Got all mixed up for a second there.”

….”Wait, what?”


	47. How To Save A Life

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> smoakd said: PROMPT: Felicity makes her first kill in the field and she’s shaken to the core. She pushes everyone away as a result and stays away from TA for a while. Maybe Felicity has nightmares about it everyday too? Days later, Oliver goes to Felicity and is the one to bring her back from the brink of a total meltdown. He lets her cry in his arms, he comforts her, he tells her nothing she does would ever make him love her less. :’)
> 
> Setting this as an alternative ending to 3x05

When he hears the gunshot, he pictures her body, pictures blood seeping out onto her dress, pictures losing her in the way he’s always feared. He pictures losing the woman he loves to this plague of a life they’ve started to live and he pictures the chaos and disassociation he knows will follow it. Because as soon as he hears that gunshot he knows that he will be nothing without her. If he has lost her, he has lost what little of himself remains beneath the leathers of the hood and he doesn’t think twice about sprinting down the stairs and into the warehouse.

Instead she is alive. She’s bursting with life, with harsh breaths wracking her body, trembles over every inch of her skin, and he swears he can ever hear the rough pounding of her heart within her chest.

She’s alive.

But Cooper isn’t, and the gun is in her hands.

–

Space. She asks for space.

It kills him to give it to her.

Despite how things have been between them since he swore he couldn’t be with her and be the Arrow, he wants to be at her side, to see for himself that she’s safe, but she says that what she needs right now is to be at home. Not Starling City, home. Las Vegas, home. She takes vacation from work, shows up to the foundry with her coat buttoned all the way to the top and her arms folded across her chest, and tells him that after everything that happened with Cooper, she needs some time with her mother.

He wants to tell her to stay.

He wants to tell her that he’s sorry.

He wants to gather her into his arms and never let go.

He kisses her forehead, tells her to take care of herself, tells her he’ll pick her up from the airport when she comes home, and makes her swear to call him if she needs anything.

–

She doesn’t call him.

Ray does.

“Mr. Palmer, really, there’s nothing to worry about. She’s back home visiting with her mother, I’m sure she’ll be back soon.”

He’s not sure about that. She’s been gone for a week.

“She hasn’t gone anywhere,” Ray tells him.

“…what do you mean? She told me she was-”

“I pinged her phone, Felicity never left Starling.”

–

It takes him thirteen minutes to navigate traffic and get to her place. It’s still early, but when she opens the door she looks like she hasn’t slept in days. He realises instantly she hasn’t slept properly in a week. He should never have let her out of his sight. Should never have let her go. Should never have agreed to her putting space between them. Should never have left her.

“Why are you here?” she whispers. Her voice is scratched. When was the last time she spoke to anyone?

“Where else would I be?” he murmurs.

She breaks.

–

She almost sinks to her knees as the tears stream onto her cheeks as if she’s held them back and they’ve been waiting for their catalyst. She never reaches the ground though, as he lunging forward and pulling her into his arms before he’s shut the door. Her front door slams shut when he leans back against it, and they move to the ground together. She’s a dead weight in his arms, she has nothing more to give, and he’s there to hold the littered pieces of her together when she cracks in his arms.

He cradles her against him, hands rubbing her back to try and ease the ragged breaths that leave her chest between sobs. She’s so far past shaking that her every limb feels tense and sagged at the same time. He recognises this; the unfamiliar tension, the inability to feel at home in your own skin after taking a life.

She took a life. She killed a man.

So he holds her. He rubs her back, he whispers words she knows she’s not paying attention to, leaves kisses in her hair and across her temple.

And when she stills against him, all cried out and tucked against him, he carries her to bed and maybe he lingers a little too long when he’s stroking the hair away from her forehead.

–

As she sleeps, he reorganises her life. This is what she does for him.

When he feels at a loss, she fixes him. She puts him back together, makes a basement floor a home, buys him a bed, buys a rail for his clothes to hang on, offers him her guest room no matter how many times he refuses to invade on her privacy.

Today, privacy isn’t an option.

Her kitchen is littered with empty bottles of wine, half-finished glasses without her trademark lipstick stain around the rim, coffee mugs that actually have things growing on the top. No sign of food save for an empty packet of chips that looks a few days old. A quick inspection of her kitchen shows that she’s not got any food that’s in date, and he’s grateful for what little money is left in his wallet and the fact that a mini-mart exists at the end of her street.

By the time she’s waking up, he’s filled the fridge, frozen some dinners because she really, really doesn’t eat good enough and Big Belly Burger isn’t something substantial for her to be eating four nights a week. He’s also cleaned the apartment, dimmed the lights because she’s slept for ten hours, and pulled the curtains. The place doesn’t feel like a void anymore, it feels more like the homely environment she introduced him to a few months ago.

She shuffles in, looks around the room in a state of confusion.

“Great, now I’m hallucinating,” she mumbles.

“No, you’re just hungry,” he tells her, a hand on her back as he leads her to the couch. “So sit down, I’ll get you a plate-”

“I don’t have any-”

“I took care of it,” he says quietly, touching a hand to her shoulder before he leaves her side. When he returns with a plate full of pasta, she takes it from him and doesn’t touch it. Instead she looks up at him.

“What are you doing here?” she asks him at last.

“What you always do for me.”

–

They eat in silence, and she nods with a childlike obedience when he tells her how to cook the frozen meals he’s left in her freezer. He takes in the folded laundry, the tidied coffee table, the fact that her DVDs are strangely alphabetised and she realises he stayed the whole time she was asleep. He coaxes her to take a shower, doesn’t question while she stays in there for forty-five minutes, because there’s something freeing about the hot water that he knows makes thought processing a little more possible. He takes clean pyjamas from the laundry pile and lays them out on her bed. He fills in the gaps she’s forgotten are there.

He’s making himself at home with her Netflix watch list, trying to find something light hearted that doesn’t involve a single aspect of murder references, but she watches a lot of crime dramas so it’s pretty hard. He’s even slipped into the cartoons section when she finally appears, swamped in a sweater that’s so large it can only be–

“Is that mine?” he asks with a knowing smile.

She stops in her tracks, toying with the edges of the far-too-long sleeves and looking down, damp hair falling around her shoulders. He can see her forming a response, about to tell him that she can’t, that she brought it home to wash it for him because he can’t do laundry at the foundry and just forgot to give it back, but what falls out of her mouth is something far more fragile.

“I killed him, Oliver.”

He shifts over the back of the couch and guides her to the spot he’d occupied. He sits in front of her rather than beside her, perching on the edge of the coffee table and taking her hands in his. “You were protecting yourself and your mom. You didn’t have a choice.”

“But I…I killed him. He’s dead because of me.”

“He would have killed you if you hadn’t,” he reminds her.

She bites her lip, and now that her body has rested and renourished enough to have some muscle strength, she trembles.

“Hey,” he whispers, bringing his hand up to her cheek. “What you did was something you should never have to do, and it was something I never wanted for you,” he confesses. “But you saved your own life, and you saved your mother’s life, and being a hero isn’t as glamorous as people want to think it is.”

“How do you live with this?” she asked him.

“Because I have to,” he tells her. “It’s the price I pay for keeping the people I love safe. God, Felicity, if I’d just gotten there a second earlier, I’d have-”

“Kept the person you love safe,” she finishes his sentence.

“Always,” he nods, and leans his forehead against hers.

She leans into his touch, closing her eyes. “I don’t feel like me anymore,” she confesses with a small whine in her tone.

“It’ll feel that way for a while,” he reassures her. “But every day gets a little easier, and I’m going to be here the whole time.”

“The whole time?” she questions.

“Until you feel like you don’t need me here,” he nods. “But until then, we’re going to get through this together.”

“Until I’m me again,” she says, as if she’s assuring herself what he’s here for.

“I know you better than I know myself,” he says, lifting his head from hers so he can press his lips to her forehead.

She makes a strangled sound, and he thinks she’s fighting back tears again from the way she clings to him a little tighter. “Please stay,” she asks him in a tiny voice. “I don’t want to be here on my own.”

“I’m never going to leave you,” he assures her.

And he stays. He stays until it’s two in the morning and she’s asleep with her head in his lap and his fingers in her hair. He stays until he’s laying her in bed and tucking her in. He stays until she tries to make breakfast the next morning and they end up eating re-heated lasagne because he didn’t think ahead enough for breakfast food.

He stays until he leaves to get a clean shirt and comes back with a duffle bag.

He stays until the guest room becomes his room.

He stays until she wakes in the night and he’s there, holding her, calming her down, and the other side of her bed becomes his.

He stays until the arm around her waist is a necessity, until he wakes with his face in the curve of her neck, until she pulls him closer in the kitchen one morning and tries to babble away an excuse for kissing him but he’s not listening because he’s too busy trying to kiss her back.

He stays.

He never leaves her again.


	48. Hey, Beautiful

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> walkerandbartowski said:
> 
> Felicity having to have an emergency C-section, early. And Oliver talking to the baby in the NICU since Felicity still isn’t awake yet.

“Hey, it’s me. You probably recognise my voice, don’t you? I hope so…I’m sorry I can’t hold you. I’ve really been looking forward to that part, but…you’re just a bit too small yet. Hopefully your mom will be awake soon and she can come see you too, because she’s so excited to meet you. She’s just sleeping it off, because the surgery was a bit rough and no, no, no…don’t cry… _can I? I…oh…okay, like this? Right, got it_. See, how’s that? Wow, your hands are so tiny. Maybe mine are just…gargantuan. Huh…that’s something that your mom would say. You’re so small…but you’re going to be okay. You’re going to get really big and strong and then we can take you home. And I know you can do that, because we made you, and you’re going to be awesome, okay, kid? We’ll get you a name soon as well, I promise. Listen, I uh….I gotta go check on your mom and see if she’s awake, but I’ll be back straight after, I promise.”

–

“Hey, beautiful. Me again. Daddy. Whoa…sorry, I didn’t realise how…different that word would be when you were finally here. It’s kinda heavy. In a good way. I know you were probably expecting a lot more fanfare when you arrived, I know I was, but…just because things are different doesn’t mean they aren’t good. You already put on weight since yesterday though, so that’s really good. It means that you’re going to be fine. Speaking of fine uh…your mom’s doing good. She’s not awake just yet, but the doctors said it should be soon.”

–

“Morning, beautiful. Have I got a surprise for you? Wait, wait, I want to do it. Careful, don’t move that wire, I think that’s an important one. Careful, careful…and let’s sit down and…there. Perfect. Wow. Hey. Hi. Wow. See, cuddles with Dad are much better than that stupid plastic box. Well, it’s not stupid, it’s keeping you healthy and definitely keeping you warm, but they think that this skin-to-skin thing could really help you. Your mom would probably be much better at this than I am, but she’s still sleeping so you’ve got me instead. Mind you, your mom’s got a thing for my chest so I think may you…yeah, you look pretty cosy there, don’t you? We’re just going to hang out here for a while and get you a bit warmer, okay?”

–

“Look who’s awake. I guess you’re going to sleep about as much as I do, which your mom won’t be happy about. I think she was hoping you’d sleep in with her in the mornings. I’ll have to teach you how to do that, because she’s a great bed cuddler and it’s definitely something you’ll love. She’s still sleeping now, but you’re getting another visitor today. Your Aunt Thea’s allowed to come up and see you, which she’s really excited about. I think she’s bringing a lot of gifts up for you as well, probably a balloon, but I don’t think you’re allowed those yet so I’ll put those in your Mom’s room for now.”

–

“Hey, beautiful. I’m late today, I’ve been down with your mom. They think she’s going to wake up soon and I wanted to be there for that, but I missed you so wanted to come in for a quick kiss first. You’re very addictive, you know that? Just like your mom. Hopefully she can come up here soon because I hate having my two girls in separate rooms. I just want to be with you both. I know it’s really hard for you not to be with your mom, but she’ll be awake soon, I promise.”

–

“Shh, baby girl, don’t cry. I know you’re normally sleeping now. I have a surprise for you. That’s it, shhh, settle down, Daddy’s got you. It’s time to go and meet your Mommy.”


	49. Salmon Ladder Bonding

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ligiapimenta said:
> 
> Hi. I have a idea for a prompt after Stephen tweet about the salmon ladder and Charlote Ross saying she’s in Vancouver. What if Mama Smoak see Oliver doing the salmon ladder? I think it would be really funny. I hope you like my suggestion.

“Oh, my…”

Felicity looks up, catches sight of her mother overly-appreciating Oliver, and screws up her eyes slightly. This is her treat, watching Oliver do the salmon ladder, and she doesn’t like to share it with anyone. He’s all sweaty, glistening in the low light of the home gym area he’s insisted is an essential part of their home, and she definitely, definitely knows what is going through her mother’s head right now.

She knows it’s perverted, because apparently she inherits that from her mother too.

“Honey, does he do this all the time?” Donna asks.

Felicity tries not to look up from her phone. “Every other day,” she tells her in a semi-bored tone.

Except she’s not bored. She might get to see Oliver do the salmon ladder a lot more than she did before, but it’s hardly an everyday event. It’s always a treat.

“Well, look at that…” Donna says, her voice faint and distracted, and she really needs to stop staring like that because it’s a little creepy. “Dinner and a show. You don’t get that much outside Vegas.”

Felicity looks up, her face passive. “You can get that in literally any city that has a restaurant and a theatre.”

“Not a show like that,” she nods towards Oliver.

Felicity can’t disagree with that.

“Mom, can you maybe…not stare at him like he’s a slab of meat? That’s my boyfriend.”

The words strike home with Donna and she shakes herself, standing beside Felicity and putting her arms around her shoulders, hugging her from the side. “Honey, I’m so proud of you.”

“Because I’m a self-taught genius or because I’m dating Oliver Queen.”

Donna’s silent for a moment, toying with Felicity’s hair. “Can’t it be both?”

“Mom…”

“Sweetheart, I’m just happy that you’re settled with a good man,” she insists. “A good…great…outstanding…”

“Mom, you’re staring again.”

“Hmm?”

“Is that…drool in the corner of your mouth?” she asked hesitantly, and…yep. Yep, that’s drool. Her mother is literally drooling over her boyfriend.

“So, he won’t be doing this tomorrow?” Donna asks a little sadly.

Felicity gives up.

Her mother is attracted to her boyfriend.

Hell, who isn’t?

Embrace it, she tells herself. Oliver had told her to find the bonding points and work on them. Maybe this would be their bonding material?

She slips her arm around her mother’s waist. The hug feels a little more complete. “Sometimes he does it in just his underwear,” she reveals.

Donna turns to her with a gasp. “Well, honey, what day does he do that on?”


	50. Going Up, Settling Down

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> rosemariedavis said: Prompt: Olicity in the plane for Italy during their summer together. Oliver being perfect boyfriend. ;)

They’ve been in the air for six hours when she starts to shift uncomfortably in the seat. They’ve upgraded to business class to avoid the coach seats, but Oliver has to admit that he really misses first class right about now. There’s more legroom, but not entirely enough, and he can see her arching her back ever so slightly as she tries to stretch out.

“You okay?” he asks, his hand coming down over hers on the handrest.

“My back’s aching,” she grumbles, slumping back in her seat and turning over her hand so she can grip his.

He leans forward, taking the pillow from behind his back and nodding to her. “Lean forward.”

“I’m not taking your pillow,” she tells him.

“You are, I don’t need it,” he insists.

She doesn’t argue any further, and when she lets him place it behind her, she does admit to herself that it’s far more comfortable with the extra padding and shuts her eyes for a moment, enjoying the extra support as he starts to trace circles in her palm with his thumb.

“So, I’ve been thinking,” he says, clearing his throat when she looks more at ease. Her head rolls to face him, opening her eyes again. “Maybe Italy’s our last vacation spot.”

His words have a heavy meaning, and she gives him a frown. “What do you mean?”

“I mean we’ve been travelling for four months now, and it’s been great, and wonderful, and I wouldn’t trade these last few months for anything,” he says in a rush, focusing more on her hands than her. “But maybe we need to…stop travelling.”

“You want to stop this?” she asks quietly, her grip on his hand loosening a little.

He tightens his grip on her. “Not this. Not us,” he assures her quickly, and she relaxes a little. “But we can’t travel forever. I’ve been thinking about it for a few weeks now, but I think we should…find a home somewhere.”

Her face splits into an amused smile. “Oliver Queen, are you asking me to move in with you?”

“Yeah,” he grins. “You think you can handle it?”

“Do you think you can handle a living environment where I’ll be able to cook?” she points out.

He gave her a small frown .”What makes you think you’ll be allowed in our kitchen?”

She goes to speak, but her grin cuts her off. “Our kitchen. I like the sound of that.”

“So do I,” he agrees, and he leans in to kiss her but pulls back at the last minute. “Just so we’re clear, you’re saying yes, right?”

“I’m saying yes,” she confirms, bringing her hand up to his cheek. “I mean, let’s face it, you’d never get a mortgage with your financial history. You kinda need me.”

“I definitely need you,” he says, far more serious as he brings his lips to hers.

“I know we were going to go to Coast City when we got back,” she recalls, shifting a little in her seat to face him. “Maybe we should do some looking around when we get there. See how we like the city for…other reasons.”

“It’s not too far from Starling,” he agrees with a small nod. “We could get somewhere with enough space for people to visit, too.”

“Guest rooms?” she muses with a teasing smile. “You sure you’re ready for that?”

“Oh yeah,” he grins. “Guest towels, fancy plates that we only use when people come for dinner.”

“You’ve put a lot of thought into this,” she notes.

“I’m going to mow the lawn on Sunday mornings,” he says, his face serious, but she breaks out in a laugh.

“Don’t be that guy,” she pleads with him. “No one likes the guy who gets the lawnmower out on a Sunday morning.”

“I’ll do it in my underwear, the neighbours will love me.”

“A little too much,” she says, biting her lip to keep from laughing, and she wonders why it’s so easy to have this life with him, this life where they talk about being friends with their neighbours and mowing the lawn. “So, we’re moving in together.”

“We are,” he grins at her. That special ‘I’m happy’ grin that she fell in love with. “Our names are going to be on utility bills together.”

“And a lease.”

“And a mailbox.”

“Yeah, but who comes first?” she asks.

His grin turns filthy. “You, usually.”


	51. Memory Lane

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> super-zinie-me said: Hi, I’m so new to tumblr… So as you ask : Here one : Felicity and Oliver meet a Felicity’s friend from MIT. They share drinks… and stories about Felicity and the dumbest stuffs they do together… Oliver asks for more. Felicity is not laughing… Have fun with this two. I love them so much !

She wants to die. She wants out of this bar, out of this city, and maybe to accidentally-on-purpose drive herself off the nearest cliff. Are there any cliffs in Boston? She can’t remember. She never really spent much time off campus when she was at M.I.T, but at least she got out of the city when she graduated, which is more than she can say by the so-called-friend that’s currently leaning into Oliver and divulging the worst secrets from her college days.

“And have you seen what she looks like with electric-blue eyeliner? Hang on, I think there’s a picture on my Facebook page, let me check–”

Felicity avoids Facebook for this reason.

No good can come from Facebook, and this is exactly proof of that.

Oliver’s actually waiting for her to find the picture.

Jessica was her roommate in college, not that they saw much of each other while she was seeing Cooper because she spent a lot more time in his dorm with her laptop, but Jessica, despite her preppy-ness that Felicity hadn’t really liked, but when Cooper had died it was Jessica who stayed up all night with her, Jessica who had helped her dye her hair, and Jessica who had reminded her how to do makeup without excessive use of dark colours.

Jessica was also the one betraying her worst moments.

“We need to leave soon, right, Oliver?” she hints, giving him a very suggestive look. “We have that thing.”

“No, I moved that a few hours later,” he tells her with a charming smile that she decides to hate at the moment. “I figured you’d want some time to catch up.”

“It was a really important thing,” she lies.

“Nothing is more important than you,” he tells her, placing his hand over hers, and she’s interrupted from telling him that now isn’t the time to be a good adorable boyfriend by Jessica thrusting her phone in Oliver’s face.

“See!”

He looks from the photo to Felicity, then back again, then again, and again, and his grin’s growing. “That’s a lot of eyeliner,” he agrees.

She’s not entirely sure he knows what eyeliner is.

“She hit the goth phase pretty hard,” Jessica butts in. “She worked it, though, sometimes even Cooper looked away from his computer to look at her.”

She knows it’s supposed to sound like a compliment. It comes out like an insult. “So, Jessica-”

“So, you two were close in college?” Oliver interrupts, turning to Jessica.

He’s not getting sex tonight, Felicity decides.

“Super close,” Jessica lies. “Some people called us sisters.”

That one time they dressed up as creepy twins for Halloween.

“In fact,” Jessica adds, “Hey, Lissy, did you ever tell him about that time that we…?”

She knows straight where Oliver’s head goes, because his eyebrows shoot up and he turns to her. “Tell me about what, Lissy?” he asks.

Scratch that, he’s not getting sex for a month.

She turns her glare to Jessica. “Nothing happened, you’re making it sound dirtier than it needs to be, and I am extremely qualified to be the judge of things that sound unnecessarily dirty.”

“Well, it’s not every day you share a shower,” Jessica teases.

Oliver swallows. Noticeably.

“We didn’t share a shower-”

“We were both there, showering, at the same time.”

Oliver shits in his seat. Felicity glares at him.

“In bathing suits,” she said, trying to slam down his arousal.

It doesn’t.

“So, about this showering thing-,” he says, clearing his throat.

“Stop it,” Felicity warns him. “We were using the communal showers, every stall was taken except one and we were in a rush. It was quick, we didn’t even look at each other, and –”

“I looked,” Jessica stated simply.

Felicity stops with her drink halfway to her lips.

Oliver makes a strangled sound.

Jessica shrugs. “What? You hid under those goth shirts all the time, I was curious. Turns out you were rocking it.”

She’s about to die. She’s certain of it, but Oliver’s hand is on her knee under the table - when did that get there? - and he squeezes it. “So, uh, Felicity, that thing we had to get to…we should probably make a move…”


	52. We're Leaving

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I have this weird prompt… hopefully you can do something with it :) Remember Max Fuller? Oliver slept with his fiancee. What if sometime on the Olicity road trip they go out to a club and Max Fuller starts hitting on Felicity, and then finds out she is Oliver’s girlfriend and REAAALLLY starts hitting on her. Jealous/Protective Oliver really gets me :)

Oliver doesn’t realise how out of control he’s getting until he feels the glass crack in his hand. It doesn’t shatter, not even nearly, but it’s enough of a warning sign that he realises he’s not at all a part of the evening, rather just a jealous rage that leans against the bar.

Yes, he’s jealous. He’s enough of a man to admit that.

He’s enough of a man to consider crossing the room and knocking Max Fuller the fuck out.

Because Max Fuller is giving Felicity the once over like she’s a slab of meat and it’s making his blood boil.

Of course, of all the clubs they could possibly have picked in Vegas, they’ve come to one that Max Fuller seems to enjoy, and of course the moment he leaves Felicity standing at their table so he can get them more drinks, Max has swooped in to the pretty girl left alone and Oliver turns to see his eyes raking over her and his heart feels with an anger it hasn’t had in months.

Because she is his now.

His.

Max’s eyes flicker up, catch Oliver’s eye and he can see the understanding hit him, and sees his arm comes down, his hand fall on Felicity’s arm, sees her move her arm out of his reach, and Oliver feels that almost-forgotten instinct rise in him.

He doesn’t remember how many people he knocked out of his way on his way back to the table, but as soon as he was Felicity’s side he handed her the drink she’d asked for and slid his free arm around her waist, tugging her into his side as he placed a lazy kiss on her cheek. “For you, gorgeous,” he drawled out, before making a dramatic noticing of the man at her side. “Max Fuller, surprise surprise.”

“Surprise indeed,” Max says with a wink at Felicity. “I didn’t realise you had the cash flow for Vegas.”

He bites back the response he wants to give him, which is a variation of ‘go fuck yourself’. “We’re visiting family,” he replies over the music, with a look at Felicity.

Max’s eyebrows fly through the roof. “We-ell, got yourself a Vegas girl,” he said proudly. “Damn, Oliver.”

“Oh, I got myself one hell of a girl, Max,” he insisted. “So maybe you want to think about keeping your hands to your own girls, and keep them off of mine.”

Those are the magic words, and Max suddenly seems as though he’s bracing himself to square up. Oliver feels Felicity’s hand on his back clench, balling in his shirt as a warning, but he ignores it.

“You’re one to talk about keeping hands to themselves, Oliver,” he warns.

“True,” Oliver agrees. “But, I can guarantee you, Felicity’s not interested in you.”

“At all,” Felicity agrees with a smile.

Oliver’s grin widens. “Are we good here?” Max goes to protest, but Oliver leans forward slightly, throwing a wink at him. “Go fuck yourself, Max.”

Max throws Oliver a warning glare, and Oliver just pulls Felicity closer, ignoring Max as he stalks away and he takes the opportunity to pull Felicity flush against him, his lips slanting over hers as he presses her back against the table. His drink is set aside blindly, pressing his body along the length of hers as he deepens the kiss, drinking her in until she tugged her lips out of his reach.

“Hello, jealousy,” she purrs.

“He put his hand on you,” he justifies, leaning in to her lips again, but she leans back away from him. All it achieves is to press her hips right up against his.

“You know I was never going to go off with him,” she points out.

“And why is that?” he prompts, planting hot, suggestive kisses up the length of her neck.

“Because I’m yours,” she whispers into his ear, and the words send a streak of arousal through him. She knows what those words do to him, especially when he’s caught someone else eyeing up this exquisite creature that he’s lucky enough to love.

“We’re leaving,” he growls, lifting his head away from her throat and reaching for the jacket she’s slung over a chair.

“We’ve only been here twenty minutes,” she protests.

“Felicity,” he rumbles, drawing her in again so her lower body is tight against his, and he knows she feels it because her eyebrows raise and she sucks in a breath. “We’re going back to the hotel now, so I can spread you out on the bed, stick my head underneath this stunning dress, and put my mouth on you until you’re screaming my name. So yes. We’re leaving,” he repeats.

“Yeah, leaving, right now,” she swallows thickly, half dragging him out of the club.


	53. Disrobed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anonymous said: Oliver sees Felicity undress or naked 5 times before they are together without her knowing. His thoughts and reactions would be nice. He tells her about each time after they are together.

The first time it happens it’s an accident. Well, it’s always an accident. But the first time is complete accident he never even saw coming.

They’re a little worse for wear after the fire, and they’re lucky the fire department took over when they did, and she was never supposed to be in there as long as she was. She was supposed to be far away long before the fire started, but she’d been caught by a falling beam and he couldn’t breathe properly for the thought that she was almost killed.

They head back to the foundry to clean up, he promises he’ll drive her home, but she wants to change out of her charred and filthy clothes first. They all have a few spare outfits for any occasion in the foundry, and she makes her way to the area where his bed is, where it’s bit more private, he tells her, and she starts to change.

She coughs, harsh racking coughs that have him on his feet and moving towards her with warning facts about smoke inhalation in his mind. She should have seen the paramedics, she should have gone to the emergency room, she—

She’s facing away from him, shirtless, braless, and he’s not entirely sure he’s been so captivated by a bare back before, but he somehow manages to turn away and pretend he never saw a thing. “Felicity?” he chokes out.

“I’m okay,” she tells him, appearing at his side wearing jeans and a baggy M.I.T hoodie that looks far too good on her. He must look like he doesn’t believe her, because she’s giving him a pointed look, placing her hand on his arm. “Really, I’m okay.”

He nods. “Come on, I’ll drive you home.”

–

The second time is a little less innocent and he sees a little more than he imagines he ever would.

This time they’re crammed into Diggle’s apartment. It was the closest one to the waterfront, and they wanted to get her warmed up and dry as soon as possible after he knocked her into the river. It wasn’t completely intentional - he’d been trying to push her out of the path of a bullet when he’d inadvertently thrown them both into the freezing cold river, so they’d gone to Diggle’s so that they could both shower before anything more serious set in.

He hears the water shut off and moves towards the bathroom, not just eager to see if she’s okay but also to get beneath the warm water himself.

When the door opens, she’s so surprised to see him that the towel snags on the door handle, slipping enough that he sees the full expanse of her thigh along with her waist and her side and he’s pretty sure he sees some side-boob before she manages to quickly cover herself.

“Sorry,” he blurts out quickly. She looks at him questioningly, as if begging him not to mention the fact she almost exposed herself to him. “About nearly drowning you tonight,” he winces.

“It’s okay, it’s not the first time you’ve gotten me wet,” she shrugs.

His eyebrows shoot through the roof. “Excuse me?” he splutters.

She looks horrified. “Oh my god! I didn’t mean…I swear, I…I meant that thing with the burst pipe in the foundry last year, I didn’t mean anything…oh my god, stop talking, Felicity,” she scolds herself, disappearing down the hall before he can say another word.

He wishes he could afford to make the shower a cold one.

–

The next time he’s stalking her. It’s for her own good, but yeah, this is definitely stalker-ish behaviour.

It’s not his fault. She should consider her own safety a little more. She’s being targeted a little too much for his liking, and someone’s been watching her movements to and from work, and he’s extremely worried that someone is Slade so without Sara to entertain his evenings (let’s be honest, that was never going to be a long-term thing anyway), he finds himself on the rooftop opposite her apartment, keeping watch in case someone decides to make a move.

She needs curtains. She really, really needs curtains.

He’s watched her watch a lot of television, eat her way through a tub of ice cream, disappear to somewhere he can only assume is her bathroom, and then she’s walking around her bedroom in a towel, and while the light is dim enough to allow her some privacy, he can still see everything.

Everything, as she drops the towel and starts to get her pyjamas on, slowly.

He should look away. He should be respectful of her space. He should stop being such a stalker.

He just stares. He wonders why she doesn’t give herself the credit she deserves for her beauty.

–

Over the summer, she offers him the use of his guest room while he has nowhere to stay. He accepts just because he’s lonely without Thea around, and the way Felicity shuffles around her apartment, so comfortable in her own space, it feels a little more like home.

She’s not shy, not fragile, and he imagines it’s almost like living with a best friend, and he never got to do the roommate thing before, and it’s kinda nice.

It’s really nice.

Until it’s torturous. Because she sleeps in her underwear.

He can’t sleep one night and he’s making his way to the couch as he resigns himself to starting his morning at four o’clock again when he sees her bedroom door cracked open. She’s in full view, laying out on her front with the comforter kicked off her in the summer heat, just her sports bra and panties covering her, and he swallows, backs away, and shuts his eyes.

Time for a cold shower.

–

He doesn’t mean to intrude. He’s made his choice. She’s made hers. Somehow, they didn’t choose each other.

Somehow, they make choices that lead to him almost walking in on her having sex with Ray in her office. It’s his old office. He fell in love with small parts of her within this room, and now his heart breaks entirely when he watches her head tilt back and reveal parts of her upper body he’s had vivid dreams about.

He leaves. This time, he has enough control to grant her that privacy she always deserved from him.

–

“I’m actually impressed with your self control,” she praises as she lays kisses across his chest. His eyes slip open curiously to find her smirking at him. She knows what power she has over him now. He gives it to her willingly, as he gives her every part of himself.

“I had three years of self-control with you,” he reminds her, coasting his fingertips up from her waist to the undersides of her bare breasts.

“Entirely too long,” she muses, her breath hitching at his movements.

“Don’t worry, I plan on making up for it,” he assures her, bringing his hand to the back of her neck as he pulls her down to his lips. “Thoroughly.”


	54. When We Needed You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anonymous said: Prompt: Oliver and mama smoak bond over their love for Felicity and it sometimes gets on Felicity’s nerves because they often team up against her. For example Felicity is in the hospital for whatever reason and Oliver calls Donna because he knows Felicity won’t.
> 
> Anonymous said: PROMPT: Olicity + miscarriage
> 
> Anonymous said: Prompt: Felicity throws herself into her arrow and CEO work and it worries Oliver to no end because he doesn’t know when she finds time to sleep or eat.

The door closes behind them, and neither are really sure what to do.

They’re supposed to go back to normal now. Neither of them are sure how.

So they stand just inside their front door, cling to the bags that hold slippers, a bathrobe and a mass of toiletries, and try to wonder what they’ll do today now they can’t argue over baby names.

–

“I made you lunch,” he tells her a week later, passing her a brown paper bag that’s a little larger than it usually is. Maybe he’s put a few comfort foods in there because he’s not entirely convinced she’s ready to go back to work yet.

“Thank you,” she tells him with a smile that looks forced, but he knows this is how she processes. Forcing the smile until you start to feel it for real. He doesn’t say anything, because she just wants to try a normal day, as she’d said last night in bed, so this morning he had got up and put the coffee on when she woke and went straight to the bathroom.

When she came out of the bathroom, wearing pants instead of her usual skirt, she placed blood-stained sheets straight into the washer, he bit through his lip in the avoidance of commenting on it, on asking the banned question of ‘are you okay?’.

She goes off to work, and it’s like nothing has changed, and Oliver doesn’t even hesitate to take out his cellphone and make that call.

“Donna? Hey, it’s Oliver…”

–

Oliver doesn’t cope well with the miscarriage.

He doesn’t cope well with how happy he’d been at the idea of him and his wife bringing a beautiful baby into the world, and how easily that was taken away from them.

Felicity has work to distract herself, something that forces her mind to focus on other things. Oliver knows he can have that in the Green Arrow, knows how easy it would be to put on the suit each night and take out his anger at their loss on the criminals in the city.

But the nights are when Felicity is home, and it feels normal because that’s how she wants things. She wants them to eat dinner together, to lay her legs over his lap and curl up in front of the television. He wants to do that, and when she falls asleep in his arms he wants to carry her to bed and wait until she’s asleep before he lets his fingertips graze over her stomach and wonder what could have been.

He doesn’t have a way to escape the idea that he was going to be a father and now he isn’t.

But he does have his daily phone calls with Donna, and that helps a little.

–

“Do you talk about it?” Donna asks him.

“She doesn’t want to,” he says quietly while he’s preparing lunch. It’s only mid-morning, but she’s got her post-discharge appointment today to check that she’s as healthy as they expected, so they agreed to meet for lunch first in the park near her work and then they’d go there together.

“Do you want to?” she challenges him.

He wants to. He wants to tell someone that he picked out what room would be the nursery, and that he still had a folder of bookmarks on his laptop of the furniture he wanted. He wants to tell someone that he’s finally thought of middle names for both a boy and a girl. He wants to tell someone that his chest won’t stop aching and he feels permanently hollowed out. He wants to tell someone that he’s hurting, that he misses the child they only had six weeks to even be excited about.

“I don’t know what to say,” he murmurs.

–

When he blinds himself to his own grief, he realises he’s missed hers.

He thinks she’s been forcing herself, but doesn’t realise to what degree. One night he slips his hand over her stomach and realises that she’s only faking sleep. She’s humouring his attempts to remain connected with the child they’ll never have, and he buries his face into her hair as she pulls his hand up and entwines it with his own.

But she works all hours of the day. She comes home later and later. She doesn’t smile at him any less, doesn’t distance herself. She greets him with kisses, departs with embraces, and lets him rub her aching feet on the couch when she eventually comes in the door each night.

She starts serving herself smaller portions of dinner. He’s rather suspicious that she’s not eating the lunches he’s making. She never ate breakfast anyway, only ever coffee, which seems to be all she drinks. He notices she’s losing weight but can’t bear to ignite the storm that will follow commenting on it, and he only packs an extra sandwich in the hope that she might sense his stress and eat one of them.

She’s spiralling, and she doesn’t even notice.

–

After a month, he can’t take it any more.

“I need help,” he admits through a teary phone call, his hand knotting in his short hair. “I can’t get through to her, and I need to do something, I just don’t know what.”

“How bad is it?” Donna asks.

“I don’t think she’s eaten in a few days. She’s not sleeping, she’s just…working. She’s pushing herself too hard and she won’t listen to me. She’s…I need help. I need you here.”

“I’ll be on the next flight, sugar.”

–

Felicity comes home that night with a limp ponytail that has a few strands slipping past. She comes home a little after nine, and it confuses her that there’s an extra person in the apartment until she sees the guilty expression on Oliver’s face, the tears on his cheeks and how he wipes them and goes straight down the hall to the bathroom.

“Mom, what are you doing here?” Felicity asks, starting to unbutton her coat.

“No, don’t take that off,” Donna insists, waving her hand as she stands up and picks up her own jacket. “We need to have a talk, and I need to have a drink.”

–

He’s not proud of calling Donna, but he knows they both needed her. Donna has always been what Oliver needs - a reminder of a mother figure that shows affection, and it reminds him of that last talk with his mother before she passed away. Briefly, he wonders if leaving a child alone in this world is more or less painful than the idea of a child leaving, but he pushes that thought away when the front door opens and closes, and he hears the shuffle of heels being kicked away.

They’ve been gone for four hours, and it’s well past midnight now, and he stopped watching the clock an hour ago, but he stays near the bedroom window as he listens to them moving around. He leans his forehead against the glass as he hears Felicity walking Donna to the door of the guest room at the end of the hall, listens to her taking their coats to the living room and listens to her go to the bathroom and change into her pyjamas.

He doesn’t hear her step into the room, only hears her pad to a stop right behind him and whisper a broken “I’m so sorry, Oliver.”

He turns without hesitation, embraces her tighter than he’s allowed himself these last painful ten weeks, and strokes his hand through her hair as she finally breaks down.

“I’m sorry,” he tells her, refusing to let her go so he whispers his words as close to her ear as he can. “I didn’t want to overwhelm you by calling her, but I just…I couldn’t get through to you and you weren’t taking care of yourself and I love you but I was losing you–”

“It’s okay,” she tells him, pulling back and wiping her cheeks with a shaky nod. They end up side by side on the window seat, their hands clasped together tightly. “We had a…long overdue talk,” she explains, and Oliver wants to know, but he knows it’ll be between them. “I just didn’t know how to cope with it, Oliver. I never meant to…I just didn’t know what I was supposed to do.”

“Neither did I,” he assures her, feeling his own cheeks dampen again. “Felicity, I…can’t lose you. I already lost something precious to me…to us…and when you stopped eating and sleeping, I knew I couldn’t lose you too.”

“We need to talk about it,” she knows, nodding as her head rests on his shoulder, slumping at last. “I know we do, but…I’m so tired,” she admits as his arm creeps over her shoulder and draws her into him. “I’m so hungry and tired and I just…can we please talk about it tomorrow?”

“No,” he whispers, and she lifts her head to look at him. “We’re going to go eat whatever’s in the fridge and then we’re going to sleep, really sleep until at least noon. Then we’re going to do what you needed…we’re going to spend a few days with your mom and be normal,” he breathes out the word is foreign to him. “I’ve been hiding myself up, and I think we need to..get back to an ‘us’ normal, not an individual normal. So your mom recommended we get out for a few days, spend time with her, and then we can go somewhere just the two of us and…heal.”

She nods slowly, returning her head to his shoulder with a heavy sigh. “Can we heal?” she asks hesitantly.

He kisses her forehead, lets his lips linger. “We’re going to be okay, we just need time.” She inhales through a sniffle, and his kiss repeats before he draws her entirely into his arms, holding her as she cries.

He looks at the door out of the corner his eye, and sees the shadow outside the door shift, as the person standing outside it goes back to the guest room.

A year later, when their daughter is born, Oliver remembers what he’d picked the perfect middle name.


	55. While You Were Sleeping

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This one was requested by my personal Oliver Queen

The first time she sees him up close during a nightmare, it scares her every bit as much as he warned her.

He’d warned her so many times not to get too close to him, but she hadn’t listened, hadn’t given into any thought that told her to stay away from him, hadn’t truly believed he’d even subconsciously put her in harm’s way and certainly not at his own hands. Oliver’s hands have been a presence of protection for as long as she’s known him. His hands have gifted her with the lies that concealed his true intentions when they first met. His hands have released arrows of death into men who have threatened to hurt her. His hands have cradled her cheek when she has stumbled, drawn her closer to him when his senses were alarmed, ran through her hair when it shielded her face.

When she wakes to the pull of those hands fisting in the bedsheets, she’s always taken back to that first night, when the thoughts of his mind were plagued so much that when she placed her hand on his arm he flinched away with such ferocity that he’d ended up on the floor.

Over time, it gets easier. The first time he allows her to hold him after he’s woken, seeking her arms without question of whether or not he might hurt her, he tells her how his mother had been the victim of his traumatic dreams, how he’d been so consumed by his own fear that he hadn’t even recognised her until someone was pulling him off of her. He tells her how he doesn’t ever want her to be in that position because of him.

So she develops a habit.

She may not have been with him long, but she’s been at his side long enough to know his habits, to know the difference between a clenched fist and a tense bicep. She’s also still not entirely used to sharing a bed with another person so every single movement he makes wakes her at least a little. This time, it’s the twitch that wakes her. His hand was grasped around her hip earlier, so when his fingertips flex in his sleep she startles awake, trying to decide whether he’s woken in the night and is pulling her closer or is becoming embossed in darkness, and sadly it’s the latter.

She turns to face him, finding him still in the awkward position he’s fallen asleep in. He’s cramped on his side, still in the running gear that he came home late in. She knows when he runs late at night that his mind hasn’t relaxed enough for a good night’s sleep, but she can’t spare a thought too much for what might be bothering when she can see the first signs of his nightmare flickering across his features.

It’s just a tease, at first. The slight grouping of his eyebrows that brings out what she’s named his Grumpy Line, that frown line she sees far less these days but she’s still more than used to it. His breath is coming a little faster, the way she associates with kissing these days but it’s not his lips against hers that’s stealing his breath.

It’s still early, she can hold this off. She knows his tells now, and has a lot of practice knowing what he responds to. Sometimes she’s not enough to quell the storm and it erupts within him, has him tearing his fingers into the bedsheets and wrestling the inner demons that haven’t made it to physical form. Sometimes she’s just too late and she can’t comfort him until he’s upright and trembling, grasping at her like the lifeboat his mind is stuck in, touching him like she fails to do in his nightmares, holding him in ways that he tells himself he doesn’t deserve.

Tonight she’s on time. Tonight she’s exactly where she needs to be, and it starts with a gentle trace of her finger against his jaw. This is where she touches him when he kisses her, where her hand falls to stroke when they’re curled in front of the television and his head rests near her clavicle, this is where he leans into her touch and the world falls into place for him. She sees the recognition in his features, the gentle flicker of peace that he fights towards without waking. He’s not aware of it enough to move with her touch, but one panted breath comes out as a sigh instead, and that’s victory enough.

She keeps doing this as his nightmare unravels. She watches his face grimace within his dream and the frown deepens. His pants become deeper, and it’s when his hand grips tightly enough into her waist to make her wince that she moves her other hand under his arm so she’s almost embracing him. She keeps a few inches of space between them still, at his request. She knows if he wakes he’ll want to see her face, not to be lost in a mass of her hair or pressed into her shoulder. Half an image won’t be enough to calm him in that case, he’ll need to see her face.

Her hand finds his spine, tracing her fingers over the ridges either side of the bones that separate his broad muscles. He’s solid from his training, muscles tensed as his mentality fights whatever he’s really seeing, but she doesn’t massage into them as she wishes she’d done when he first returned. She keeps her touch light, soft enough to settle him, firm enough to let him know she’s touching him.

His hand tightens, and her name is the pained whisper that leaves his lips. She knows what he’s seeing now, what he’s fearing tonight. She knows what is plaguing him and what will assure him.

Her lips press to his forehead, inching forward slightly more but keeping the gap that he insists is for her safety. She whispers words of nonsense against the tense ripples on his forehead and she felt his breathy sigh against her throat. Her hand stroked with more purpose along his spine, and the hand he gripped around her shifted to her back. Even in his sleep, he searched for her.

She whispers, strokes and reassures until he stills in her embrace. Whatever nightmare has tried to claim him tonight hasn’t succeeded, and is no match for her assurances. There’s no greater sign of his trust in her that he will surrender himself to her at his weakest.

She hasn’t told him this can happen. She hasn’t told him that some nights he believes are nightmare free are actually nighs she has defeated his demons. He’s not ready to see his nightmares as things which can be conquered yet, so she lets him sleep, lets him rest, and one day, she knows he’ll be ready to conquer them together.


	56. Up Your Game

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anonymous said: Oliver’s high school reunion.

“Can we leave now?”

His voice is desperate, longing, and god, he’s never wanted to be anywhere less. Well, that’s probably a lie, because he can think of days that he certainly wanted to be on Lian Yu a lot less than this, but now he’s also thinking that maybe a deserted island held a certain allure.

It’s definitely better than this fancy, horrific excuse for a high school reunion that he’s actually regretting bringing Felicity to because she’s having far too much fun.

“No,” she says, as she lifts the toothpick from her glass and slides the olive off into her mouth. It turns him on far too much when she does that - and she knows it - so he definitely wants to leave now.

“Please,” he says through gritted teeth.

“No,” she repeats, leaning back against the bar and flashing him a satified smile. “I’m learning a lot of things there.”

“Things I’d much rather tell you myself,” he points out.

“Things you’d definitely skip out on the details for,” she adds.

She’s not wrong. Of all the things he doesn’t want her to know, he can guarantee that all of them come out of the mouths of the women he once slept with. Which is forty of the sixty-two women in the room. He’s ashamed to say he doesn’t remember half of them, and the number grows by the minute, but he’s mostly identifying them from the scathing glares they direct at him and the looks of sympathy they send to Felicity.

So he has to resort to desperate measures.

He turns, leaning his elbow on the bar. “If we leave now, I’ll tell you anything you want to know.”

“No, you won’t,” she tells him. “You’ll try to distract me with sex.”

“And it’ll work,” he insists. “Because it’s going to be really good sex.”

She raises an eyebrow, and he knows he’s got her attention. She turns to him slowly, tilting her head up to look at him. “Go on,” she insists.

“Three orgasms,” he proposes.

“Four,” she states as if she’s bored by the mere idea.

“Five,” he trumps. Her eyebrow arches. “I told you it’d be good.”

“Sounds like a lot of talk to me, Queen,” she said indifferently, looking back down on her drink. “And I’ve heard a lot of talk tonight.”

“The only thing you’re going to be hearing for the rest of the night is your own voice screaming my name,” he tells her, bringing his hand down to her hip and leaning in to brush his lips against her ear. “And that’s a promise.”

Still, she tilts her head. “Sorry, but if you’re wanting me to leave this goldmine of blackmail material,” she gestures out around the room, “then you’re going to have to pull some record-breakers out of the bag tonight.”

His next words she didn’t understand. He merely looks over the rim of his glass, darkens his eyes with lust and gives her a slow look up and down before he speaks to her in Russian.

She stills, matches his stare, and then puts down her glass. She sweeps her clutch bag off the bar and gives him a pointed look. “We’re leaving. Now.”


	57. Patterns

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anonymous said: What about Felicity helping Oliver out with his nightmares? Like he has ptsd or something and Felicity helps him out overcoming it.. It would be cool if they were not together at the beginning and then they get closer! Btw keep up the awesome work, you’re amazing :)
> 
> Set during the season 2 hiatus.

The first time she wakes up to him, he’s slipping out of her bedroom window in his green leathers. When they get to work, she makes sure to leave him a coffee on his desk.

She doesn’t mind that he snuck in, and she thinks it’s something to do with Thea being gone and the aftermath of Slade, and the fact that he was sleeping in the foundry for the last few weeks.

He doesn’t act like anything’s out of the ordinary, so she doesn’t bring it up, but it is the beginning of a pattern.

–

Two days later, she wakes up and he’s on the couch, and her kitchen is suspiciously cleaner than she’d left it.

A week later, he makes her coffee, and they leave for the foundry together.

After a month, he starts to purposefully go home with her, and when he actually uses the word ‘home’ she realises that at some point, they’ve become roommates.

–

Oliver sleeps in the strangest places, because he never means to fall asleep. She catches him outside her bedroom door several times, leaning against the wall. Most of the time he’s upright on the couch, the television still on with the sound off. Occasionally he’s sprawled over the surface of the breakfast bar. One time he’s inside her bedroom, propped against her dresser as if he’s keeping watch over her.

She realises that’s exactly what he’s doing. Keeping watch.

He’s lost his mother this year. He doesn’t know where his sister is right now.

But he knows where Felicity is, and he watches over her.

–

She hasn’t caught him sleeping for three days. He’s been out on patrol until late at night, not coming home with her, but she wakes to shaking breaths and after her eyes adjust to the dimly lit silhouette at her side she realises the unsettling sounds are coming from him.

“I’m sorry,” he tells her, his voice hesitant, bordering on an apology for lying beside her on her bed, for crossing this boundary.

He’s still in his leathers, dirt on his face, his eyes red-rimmed and glassy. She doesn’t know what he’s seen tonight, but she doesn’t want to know. All she needs to know is that he came back to her safely and that’s all she’ll ever need.

So she takes her hand, places it over his in the space between them and whispers to him. “You’re okay.”

–

The next night, he’s in her bed on purpose, and every night after that.

Their hands lay joined in the space that’s always between them.

–

Summer is almost over. Fall is drawing in and things feel oddly settled.

Except for Oliver, who trembles when the sun goes down and falls victim to the shadows inside his mind. Sometimes he whispers for his mother, curses at Slade, mutters Thea’s name. When he wakes, it’s always her name on his lips, and Felicity’s always there. There when he reaches for her. There when he calls for her. There when he crushes her against him to remind himself that she’s alive.

There when he needs physical touch to fall asleep again.

–

One morning she wakes with his face nuzzling into the back of her neck, and she thinks she might be dreaming at first. His arm is slung over her stomach, his hand running delicate circles into the skin revealed by her pyjama shirt, her back pressed against his chest, and he’s gently brushing his nose along the length of her neck.

He stills when he realises she’s awake, sucking in a breath as he buries his face completely in her neck. “I’m sorry,” he whispers. “I just…need a minute. I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay,” she tells him, bringing her hand over his when he starts to pull it away. It keeps them together, keeps his embrace tight around her, and she feels his heart start to speed up against her shoulder blade. “This is okay,” she assures him.

“It is?” he asks, his voice a little tighter, the breath finally releasing against her throat. She wonders if he feels the shiver that runs through her.

“Yeah,” she whispers, bringing up their joined hands so she can press her lips to the inside of his wrist. He mimics the action almost immediately against her neck. “This is very okay,” she assures him, as he goes back to tracing his stubble against the curve of her neck.

“Go back to sleep,” he tells her softly, pulling her tighter against him until she’s entirely in his arms. “It’s still early.”

“Way too early,” she agrees, her forehead resting in his open palm as she sinks back into the warmth that tugs at her. “You can keep doing that though,” she mumbles as her eyes slip shut.

“I plan to,” he whispers, as his thumb strokes over her temple.

This is a pattern she could get used to.


	58. Let Go

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> orangeisorange said: Prompt: Oliver and Felicity have put both kids to bed and are sharing a glass of wine reminiscing about how stupid/silly they were back when they were fighting their feelings for each other :) “who would’ve thought that the cute guy with his stupid ‘latte destroyed my lap top’ lie would turn out to be the love of my life” sort of moment.

The wine slips down her throat easily, a welcome distraction from the long day that’s fully exhausted her. Motherhood is exhausting, but it’s the best kind of tired Felicity has ever felt. She sinks back into the couch, humming contently when a familiar arm drapes over her waist and tugs her that little bit closer to him.

“There you are,” she whispers, shifting to rest her head on the arm of the chair as he drifts into the space beside her, mimicking her position. “Kids go down okay?”

“Three stories for Tommy, but only one for Ava,” he told her. “She insisted she was too old for bedtime stories and wanted to have an adult conversation instead.”

“Already?” Felicity whines a little, burying her face into his shoulder before she raises it to direct the wineglass to her lips. “I thought we’d make it until she was at least in double digits before she claimed to be an adult.”

“Didn’t you hear, eight is the new ten,” he points out to her, as his thumb strokes the spot over her hips. “Can you believe it? Our little girl’s an adult now.”

“She’s still eight,” Felicity insists. “She’ll never be an adult.”

“I can’t believe how big she already is,” Oliver says with an air of wonder in his tone. His eyes are fixed on her wedding ring, but she’s not sure he’s really seeing it, as if he’s lost in the memories of his newborn daughter who’s getting rather grown up these days. “And so beautiful.”

“We do make beautiful babies,” Felicity agrees, taking the last sip from her glass.

He tries to take the now empty glass from her hands, and she gives a playful whine. “Let go,” he tells her, ghosting his lips over hers. When she releases it, he places it on the floor beside the couch. Now they can relax better, shifting into place side by side on the corner seat of the couch, entwined in each other with their noses and lips casually brushing between words. She lives for this hour, between the kids going to bed and them going to bed.

“Do you regret not having more? Babies, I mean,” Oliver asks her.

“No,” she tells him honestly. “I think our family’s perfect exactly how it is.”

“Me too,” he smiles at her. “Who’d have thought…?”

“That we’d make such beautiful babies? Oh, me definitely. I had this all planned out years ago,” she brushed it aside. “You were the last part of the plan.”

His laugh is a huffed breath against her lips. “You were the start of mine,” he tells her. “Walking into your office changed my whole life.”

“And mine,” she agrees. “I can’t imagine where I’d be without you,” she adds with a hint of sadness to her tone.

“But you are with me,” he points out, his lips touching hers for good measure .”Thank you for my family. For giving me this wonderful life where I get to wake up every day and be happy.”

“Thank you for being the best husband and father a girl could ever want in her life.”

He smiles, his eyes warm and glassy. “We’re getting all emotional, aren’t we?” he realises.

“Blame the wine,” she shrugs it off, drawing his lips back to hers.

–

She’s not sure when she dozed off, but she comes to when fingertips dig into her hip, drawing her into a wakefulness that’s accompanied by slow, ragged breaths against her face. She first things they’ve both fallen asleep and he’s having another nightmare, but he hasn’t had a nightmare since the day Tommy was born, and when she sits up, Oliver’s eyes meet hers with a staggering understanding that she definitely isn’t ready for.

“It’s okay,” she whispers, bringing her hand to his cheek to try and calm him. “I’ll call the hospital, they’ll have everything ready, Thea can come get the kids–”

He says nothing, but he shakes his head. She stops moving, and settles back how she was laying before, facing him on her side. Her hand comes up to his cheek, the other pressed to his chest as she cements her lips to his forehead.

“Here?” she asks.

He nods weakly. She knows he won’t have the strength to get up.

“Do you need anything?”

He squeezes her hip. Her. He needs her.

“I’m here,” she whispers, her fingertips stroking over his cheek. Usually when she does this he closes his eyes, but she’s glad when he doesn’t. “I’m right here with you.”

His fingertips flex across her side, the same way they have for years, the way he has brought her closer and held her against him. He woke her so he could have this moment with her, this last moment. He woke her so they could be together for the last time. He woke her so he didn’t have to face this final fight alone.

And she can see the finality in his eyes. He put his children to bed that night at his insistence, and she knows that he has suspected this all evening. It’s why he let the kids sit on his aching lap to eat their dinner, why he sat uncomfortably in Ava’s bed to discuss the meaning of life with her, why he read Tommy two extra stories until his voice was hoarse. They won’t have known it, but he was saying his goodbyes to them. Their last memory of him is going to be the night he tucked them in, kissed them goodnight, and told them that he loved them. He has no doubts that he said everything to them that he needed to.

Now it’s her turn. He just needs one more thing from her. The one thing she hasn’t been able to give him through this whole battle.

Acceptance.

“It’s okay,” she tells him, biting her lip through her tears. She’s thought she’d at least try to be strong for him in this moment but now it’s not an option. There was never a choice in that. His breath is shaking against her lips when she speaks. “If it’s time, then don’t fight it,” she tells him, her voice tight but soft, always soft for him. “You’ve been fighting for so long, babe, you don’t need to fight anymore.”

A tear slips onto his cheek as he gazes at her, his eyes misting but undoubtedly focused on her. She hasn’t been able to fight the cancer for him. She hasn’t been able to stop his body wasting away to a disease even medicine hasn’t been able to conquer. She hasn’t been able to save him. But she can do this for him. She can release him.

“You fought so hard, I’m so proud of you,” she tells him, stroking his face as the hand on his chest feels the unsteady _thump-thump-thump_ of his heartbeat for as long as she can. “You’ve been the best husband, the best father, the best person I have ever known,” she says as her voice hitches. Another tear slides down his cheek. It’s a steady stream on her own cheeks. “You don’t have to worry about us, okay? We’re going to take care of each other, I promise you.”

“ _Fe…li…ci…ty_ …” his breath is a trembled whisper, and she knows he’s been working up to say that one word she woke her. She’s always loved the way he says her name.

“You don’t have to be scared,” she whispers. “I’m right here with you. I love you.”

His eyes close as he sags against her, his head rolling forward until their foreheads meet, her lips touching his even though his only twitch against hers in response. His strength has failed him now. His breaths are slower, as if he’s falling asleep, but she knows this is it.

“I love you so much,” she tells him, moving her hand from his cheek to the back of his head, fingers stroking over the back of his neck in a way she knows he loves. “It’s okay, Oliver. You can let go, it’s okay.”

“Love…you,” he whispers, so quietly she almost misses it.

“I love you,” she repeats, over and over until there’s nothing more to say. “You can let go, it’s okay. I love you.”

She manages to hold back her sob until the his chest stills, and his breath against her lips doesn’t come.


	59. Campaign Managed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anonymous said: So, hi! First time doing this…If you want to, can you write Oliver’s opponent for Mayor being a complete ass and talking bad about Felicity and Oliver being his awesome self and defending her (not that she needed it, she could destroy him if she wanted it)

“Mr Queen, one more question, if you will.”

He stands with his hands on the podium, gripping into it with his most charming smile, one he’s kept for hours and it’s straining at his face now. He hates his part of the campaign, to smile in the face of people who once convicted him and shot him down, but Lance is right and the city needs somebody to stand up in the light. That person is Oliver Queen, not the Green Arrow.

“Of course,” he invites.

“One can’t help but notice that you have an incredibly close relationship with the new CEO of Palmer Tech, a Miss Felicity Smoak.”

His hands tighten defensively around the edge of the podium, and how he keeps the smile on his face is beyond him. “What question is it that you’re asking me?”

“Given that the status of Palmer Tech has not always been a stable company or stable in it’s efforts to benefit Star City. How can you be sure that your obvious connection to a company your family let slip through your grasp will be a good move for this city?”

The question makes him angry when he realises its true intent, but he manages to shift it through an amused look. “Am I being asked to justify my relationship with Miss Smoak?”

There’s a mumble across the audience, and he realises that’s exactly what he’s being asked.

“I can understand your concern,” he says in a level headed tone, though he’s all too aware of the silence in his ear from Felicity listening through the discreet comms unit in his ear. “Professionally speaking, Miss Smoak is the best chance Palmer Tech has of making it out of it’s economical crisis,” he said confidently. “You all want such a prestigious company to regain the reputation it had before and to be of a higher benefit to the city, and I have no doubt that she will direct the company in the right direction. This is not a woman of a business mind, this is a woman who has extraordinary abilities in her field, and you can take me at my word when I tell you that she is phenomenal when it comes to using her skills to help people.”

The crowd’s muttering stops, and while he’s pleased for that, and while he’s glad that he has silenced their doubts by speaking of her professional skills alone, this is still a political debate, and he has time to fill in the silence.

“Personally speaking,” he says, clearing his throat slightly and ignoring the ‘Oliver, what are you doing?’ whispered into his ear by the woman in question. “Throughout this campaign I’ve been reminded of something my father told me when I was younger. At the time I didn’t give it any thought, but recently it’s stayed with me. He told me that a man in power is only as good as the woman on his arm. My father relied heavily on my mother for a number of reasons, but there were also reasons that drove them apart. One thing that he showed me was that it’s important to surround yourself with the love of people who inspire you to be a better version of yourself,” he said with a firm nod. “I haven’t always been the best version of myself, but I firmly believe I can be that person now, thanks to Felicity Smoak.”

She whispers in his ear again, but this time it’s softer, so he continues, and not just for the benefit of the public and the media.

“Without her, there would not be a version of Oliver Queen who would step up and take his place in this city,” he said with a firm certainty. “You can settle your doubts about our relationship, either professional or personal, right now. She’s a remarkable woman, and this city is lucky to have her on their fighting side…and so am I.”

A hand raises, and he nods towards it to accept their question. “Does that mean there might be a future Mrs. Queen?”

There’s a small squeak in his ear, and he smiles broadly. Of course there will be. “Well, that all depends on whether or not she says yes, doesn’t it?”


	60. Battered

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> saltedcaramel-ly said: hi! i sinceriously love your fics! :) i dont know if you are taking prompts but im going to give you one anyway. :) ive been rewatching arrow season 2 and im watching the scene where oliver and digg is getting the mirakuru cure from blood and oliver asked felicity to stay with roy. what if roy woke up and hurt felicity while oliver and digg are away?

They find the foundry completely shattered. Their equipment is scattered across the ground, wires sparking where their plastic casings have cracked, glass shards littering the ground. There’s not a single surface that’s not overturned, broken or thrown across the room.

A trail of blood leads them to where she’s crumpled beneath the remains of her desk.

–

She comes to the dimmed lights of a hospital room closed off for the night, with a hand clasped around her own and a soft voice whispering her name.

“Good girl, that’s it…take it slow.”

Her eyes flicker, finding the shape at her side and blinking until it morphed into a far more familiar form. It’s a person she isn’t sure she’d have expected to be at her side in a hospital, but seeing him at her side fills her with a sense of safety she knows she’ll never get from anywhere else, and the fact that he is here at her side and not out on the streets speaks volumes.

“Welcome back,” he whispers, his grip on her hand not wavering even when she clenches her fingers around him to check that she still can.

“What happened?” she mutters, her voice hoarse.

“Roy woke up,” he says quietly enough for her to understand the link between his words and the full body ache that makes her want to sleep for at least a week.

“Everything hurts,” she whispered, her eyes slipping closed again. The hand stroking back her hair surprises her, but it just draws a sigh from her lips, not a question.

“You took a beating, lost a lot of blood,” Oliver explains, and her brow furrows. “One of the computer monitors fell and hit your head, so there was a lot of bleeding, but the doctor said it wasn’t enough to need a transfusion, it just means you might feel tired for a while until your body catches up.”

“Where’s Roy now?” she asks him, and he’s silent. She opens her eyes. “Is he okay?”

“Felicity…”

“Is he okay?” she presses again, though her voice is still weak.

“He’s contained,” he explains simply. “He’s not the priority right now.”

“Slade,” she whispers.

“You,” he corrects, his grip on her hand tightening. “You are the priority right now. I need my best girl back on form.”

“Your best?” she questions, adjusting her head on the pillow for a little more comfort.

His concern twists into a small smile, one that she’s started to imagine might just be for her. “Hands down,” he tells her. “It…scared me, finding you like that,” he confesses.

She knows that can’t be easy for him to admit, especially to her, so she pulls his hand a little so her arms are tucked in, embracing his forearm as she gets comfortable. Something snags on her arm when she twists on her side, and he mutters a quick ‘careful’ and sweeps a tube to a more comfortable position. She isn’t sure what it’s for, but if it’s responsible for the pain medication then she’s pretty certain she wants to keep it attached to her.

Her eyes are slipping closed again when she feels a soft warmth against her forehead. Lips. His lips. Even through the medication that dulls her pain she feels her stomach twist in the contact. “Oliver..” she mutters, tightening her fingers around his hand.

“It’s okay,” he whispers, sounding far closer than he was a moment ago. “Don’t worry about a thing, okay? Get some sleep, I’m going to be right here.”

“You need to be–” she starts to argue, but he cuts her off, his lips firmer against her forehead this time.

“I’m exactly where I need to be.”


	61. Safe Harbour

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> misswizardofoz said: Prompt: Oliver is in an emotional abusive relationship with Laurel, she being the abuser. Felicity (digg could help) helps him out of it.
> 
> Anonymous said: Hi. Can you write a fic where Felicity runs her fingers over Oliver’s scars and starts crying a bit for him?  
> TRIGGER WARNINGS FOR ABUSE

Oliver didn’t admit to himself that it was wrong until he saw the tears in her eyes.

Not her, but Felicity. It was an accident, the way she spotted the new scars on his torso when he was changing his shirt, and he thought she’d gone home for the night and hadn’t been paying attention the sound of her heels on the tiled floor until he’d heard her gasp and knew it was too late to even try and cover himself. She’d seen it all.

He just didn’t…feel like a victim. He didn’t feel like that could be possible for him. He was the Arrow, he saved lives, he put the fear of God into people, and he hadn’t felt weak or victimised since Lian Yu.

Except he was. Felicity’s reaction told him just that. What was happening wasn’t right.

Oliver had spent years being trained not to be a victim, not to be seen as weak, even when he felt at his most vulnerable. It was how he had created the Arrow persona. Hiding behind a mask it was easy to cast aside Oliver Queen and focus on the stronger being, the one that showed no fear.

But he was afraid. And that was more frightening than the thing itself.

When it was emotional, it was easier to cast aside. Emotional abuse was child’s play in comparison to the torture he’d suffered in the years he was gone. The fact was, getting back together after Tommy died was a terrible idea, and cementing their relationship in the wake of that loss was a recipe for disaster.

“Oliver,” Felicity said, her voice choked as she knelt before the cot he was sleeping on, taking his suddenly shaking hands in her tiny ones.

He looked at her, at the tears on her cheeks, on the sheer pain in her eyes, and he realised that he should have the same reaction. He should see this as a horrific act. This is physical abuse, no matter how it was sugarcoated. The fact that he was the one in pain, and not a woman, didn’t disregard it. This was abuse. He was suffering. He was sleeping on a cot in a basement to avoid going home to her, because home meant the scent of alcohol and glasses being broken against his chest if she was particularly angry.

“Is this why you’re sleeping down here?” Felicity asked him.

She didn’t ask who. She didn’t ask how. She just knew.

So he just nodded.

She shook her head, pulling on his hands. until he was standing upright. “Come on, you’re coming home with me.”

–

He wasn’t sure whether it was the warm mug of tea pushed into his hands, the way she cleaned the more recent gash on his left shoulder, or the goddamn fleece blanket she wrapped around his shoulders after, but he told her everything.

He told her how it had just escalated and he hadn’t known how to stop it, that even though she was hurting him, he couldn’t bring himself to hurt her even it meant she might stop. He told her how he was afraid to leave her in case it made her alcoholism worse, and he was afraid that without him as a focal point she might become a danger to herself. He told her that despite it all, Laurel is someone he has known since he was a little boy and he wasn’t sure he knew how to leave her.

He told her how he felt guilty, how he spent hours agonising over what he was doing that might have made her so unhappy. He told her how some nights he thought this was the punishment he deserved for the crimes he had committed.

That was when her hands cupped his cheeks and directed his face to her tears stained cheeks.

“You do not deserve this,” she told him firmly. “No one ever deserves this. This is not your fault. Do you understand me?” He nodded, though it couldn’t have been convincing because she didn’t realise his face. “You deserve so much better.”

“What do I do?” he asked her. Because he hadn’t known what to do. He certainly didn’t know what he was going to do next, or what he should do after that, or what the fallout could possibly be.

“You need to get out,” she told him. “You can’t stay with her.”

“But-”

“No buts,” she told him. “This isn’t healthy for you. But you are not alone, Oliver.”

His breath was ragged when it left his chest, and then he was leaning into her hands as if they were his lifeline.

“Is there anything of yours at her place that you need?” she asked.

He shook his head. There were a few clothing items, a toothbrush, meaningless items that could easily be replaced. “No, nothing.”

“You can take my guest room for now,” she told him. “It’s small, but it’s better than the cot in the foundry.”

“She’s going to be angry,” Oliver told her, because he’s worried that she’ll remember his connection to the IT girl they argued about one night and he’d insisted there was nothing going on with Felicity, and the idea of Felicity getting hurt is far more unthinkable than the idea of himself being hurt.

“But she isn’t going to hurt you again,” Felicity assured him. Her thumb stroked over his cheek as his shoulders sagged. “You don’t need to be ashamed, Oliver. I know this must be hard, but I promise you don’t have to do this alone,” she told him again.

And he knew he wasn’t alone, not when he had her. So he leaned into her embrace, let her hold his head against her shoulder, and he reminded himself how to breathe again. He allowed himself to feel touch without flinching, allowed someone to help him when he wasn’t sure how to help himself.

But he didn’t feel truly free until he saw Felicity’s apartment listed as his home address on the application for the restraining order she helped him file.


	62. What Words Can't Say

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A little something for @ourwritinginvein

The touch of his lips against her forehead has always been a special delicacy, an act he has allowed himself to indulge in even at times when they weren’t together. The forehead kiss, to Oliver, is a _hello_ , a _see you later_ , a _feel better_ , a _you’re important to me_ , an _I love you_. It’s a silent yet precious message that can only be displayed lips to skin. It holds no passion, never escalates, it is merely a tiny moment of indulgence that allows him to convey everything he can’t find the words to say.

 _I will come back to you_ , it tells her, when he is leaving to fight Ra’s, and she’s terrified he won’t return to her. It’s a sweet, firm touch against her forehead and he first realises that she is the perfect height for this. Walking into her means walking into this kiss, and its for the first time that he wants to spend his life walking directly towards her. He’s sure that he loves her - so sure - so very sure that he can tell her this now and be certain of it.

 _I love you_ , it tells her, when he returns to her for the second time and can finally call her his own. He can indulge in this as often as he likes now, and though this kiss doesn’t need a reply she gives him one each time. Now it is not a promise to return, it is a promise to love, to care, to protect. This kiss is the date stamp on the blank slate they are beginning, and it is his commitment to her.

 _You’re adorable_ , it tells her, when it’s the middle of the night and she’s fallen asleep in front of a Netflix marathon and he just can’t bear to wake her. She’s half sprawled in his lap already so it’s easy to place his arms around her and lift her up, carrying her up the bedroom of their brand new house. This is their new beginning, their first home together after finding a home in one another, and she fits so perfectly in his arms that he can brush his lips over her forehead as she curls into him.

 _You’re beautiful_ , it tells her, when she wakes to soft kisses on her forehead and gentle hands caressing the arch of her back. The way she falls asleep with her head in the crook of his shoulder means he only has to tilt his jaw to kiss her like this, the way she cements herself to him is more grounding than any life affirming thought he’s had before.

 _If I kissed you anywhere else we wouldn’t stop_ , it tells her, when her mother’s insisting they make the trip out to Ikea when they finally move out of Thea’s loft and into a place of their own and Donna’s certain they can’t navigate soft furnishings alone. Because they can do this now, they can sneak touches and giggle their way through the pillows section until Donna bans them from picking up the pillows and he kisses her there, in his spot, because if he touches her anywhere else he’ll end up dragging her back to the bedroom furnishings and sneaking her into one of the wardrobes.

 _I will always protect you_ , it tells her, when she’s shaking after handling a gun for the first time and all she needs is to be in his arms. But they’re not alone, and this is all they have right now, and not only does it assure her, but assures him that she’s safe, that she’s alive, and that she’s exactly where he needs her to be.

 _I will love you for the rest of my life_ , it tells her when she gets down on her knees to be level with him after he presents her with his mother’s engagement ring. He wants to spend the rest of his life putting her on a pedestal but all she wants is for him to see himself as an equal, so she is on her knees too, repeating the word ‘yes’ as he slips the ring onto her finger and presses his lips to her forehead.

 _You are not alone_ , it tells her, when her father tries to come back into her life and all she feels is the refreshed abandonment that he left her with so many years ago. It is what he has to offer her in the dead of night when she breaks down in the kitchen and confesses how afraid she is that he will leave her too. But he will never leave her.

 _I will always be there for you_ , it tells her, when their doctor tells them that she hasn’t had the flu, but morning sickness. He kisses her forehead because she can hardly function to kiss him back but he has to kiss her because she’s having his baby, and this is the best news they can get the day before their wedding day.

 _You are my family_ , it tells her, when they crowd into a hospital bed and welcome their daughter into the world. He can’t kiss her lips because neither of them can take their eyes off this beautiful little girl she birthed only hours ago, but her forehead is right there beside his chin as they gaze at their sleeping babe.

 _We did good_ , it tells her, years later when they’re visiting their newborn grandson in the hospital, and their entire family is crammed into one hospital room while they hover in the doorway. Here they stand entwined, a peaceful moment as another generation of Queens begins and all there is left to say is that they did good, they raised good children, and they love each other every day.

And he presses his lips to her forehead, because it is where he comes home to.

 _I have been yours forever_ , it tells her. _And you will always have my heart._


	63. Hidden / Reveal

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> dontyou-forgetaboutme89 said: This is so angsty… But it needs to be written. Oliver finds out about his son and has been spending lots of time with him and Sandra, obviously he wouldn’t cheat on Felicity, but DD kidnaps her and gets into her head and persuades her that Oliver would be better off without her, so she leaves with DD.
> 
> thegreenflarrow said: If you’re taking prompts then I’ll be devils advocate 

“You did the right thing, Miss Smoak.”

She can’t have. She can’t possibly have done the right thing, because Oliver is kneeling in front of a grave with her name on, and she’s never seen him like this. She was with him after his mother died, she was with him when he thought he was losing Thea, and she just watched him send Barry away so he could be alone and he collapses to the sight of her headstone.

He thinks she is dead. That isn’t right.

“He doesn’t deserve this,” she breathes out shakily.

The hand that comes down on her shoulder makes her flinch. Even now, despite the knowledge that this devious man is her father, he still makes her skin crawl. The idea that she will now be alone with him is alarming, but he hasn’t given her a choice.

“You know he deserves this,” Damien tells her, his voice frighteningly soothing. “He can be a father now. He can have a relationship with his son. You want that for him, don’t you?”

She sucks in a breath, because she does want that for him. Now that he knows about Connor, every one of his priorities has shifted in order to be a father that he hasn’t had the opportunity to be until now. It has steadied inside him the knowledge that moving forward with Felicity means a family together, and he wants that. But it also comes with constant travel between Central City and home so that Oliver can spend time with his son.

“If he doesn’t have a relationship with his son…you know what that will do to Connor, don’t you, Felicity?”

She does. She knows what it means to have a father who leaves. A father who chooses another life over his child. She knows how it feels not to be chosen. Connor is a good boy. He’s a wonderful boy who loves them all and has welcomed them all into this bigger family he’s creating for himself. She can’t allow that sweet, innocent boy to be taken away from anyone.

So she has made this choice for them.

“If you stay, I will take the boy,” Damien tells her. “Do you think Mr. Queen can lose his son? After everyone he has lost?”

She isn’t sure he’ll survive losing her.

“It’s for the best,” he insists again.

Her head lowers, tearing her eyes away from the sight of Oliver’s head sobbing her name into his palm. There’s nothing that makes her realise the sheer magnitude of his love for her than his reaction to her loss. She watched earlier as John physically maneuvered him into a chair during the service, the way her own mother embraced him and he’d buried his face into her hair as if it were his last link to her.

This cannot be for the best.

But it has to be done. For him. For Connor.

“Let’s go,” Damien orders, and she hesitates, taking one last look at Oliver before she does turn away. The sound of Oliver’s phone beeping doesn’t make Damien flinch, but it flickers a beacon of hope in Felicity because she arranged for that message to be sent days ago. It’s coded, but when he opens it, one message will tell him all he needs to know.

_I’m doing this to keep Connor safe. Don’t stop fighting. Find me. F xxx_

_\---_

When they find her, she can hardly breathe for the arms that wrap around her.

Not the arms of a man, but the arms of a boy.

The hold that Damien has over them was eradicated with his death, and while part of her is rocked by the death of her father, she knows he was never the kind of father that she dreamed would come looking for her.

Thanks to her message, Oliver kept fighting. He kept pushing and pushing until he found her, and after four months without the love of her life at her side, she has him again, and he has her. Lance finds her with his taskforce and rush her to the hospital because she’s weaker than she’ll admit, almost unable to stand when they come for her. They tell her it’s nothing serious, just some dehydration and exhaustion. They assure her that her next-of-kin has been informed.

The Green Arrow was dealing with Darhk while Oliver Queen waited for the police’s phone call to say she’d been found.

She expects Oliver to be the first through the door when her family - because they are her family - arrive at the hospital, but instead it’s a blur of sandy hair that throws his arms around her and presses his face into her belly like he’s always done it.

Only he hasn’t done it before. He’s been her friend, been her little co-pilot, but never embraced her like this. Like he’s worried about her. Like he’s missed her. Like he loves her.

Oliver hovers a few feet back, watching his son with wide eyes filled with disbelief. It’s like he’s watching his family come together, the woman he loves and the boy he loves. His hand flickers at his side as if he’s not sure where to place it. Felicity offers him a smile, gives him a nod through her tiredness, assuring him that she’s okay and he relaxes, remaining where he is. They both know that when he gets his hands on her he’s never going to let her go again, so he gives Connor this moment.

“Miss me?” Felicity asks him quietly. “I missed you.”

“Don’t go away like that again,” Connor tells her tightly, and they won’t talk about it because he’s at that age, but he’s been crying and he’s close to doing it again. “I’m not worth it. Don’t do that for me again.”

“Hey,” she scolds him lightly, lifting his chin so she can look directly at him. “Don’t say that, you’re worth everything. You’re the most thing in the world to us, Connor. We’d do anything to keep you safe.”

If she wasn’t so lost in how much like Oliver he looks in that moment, she’ll have thought that she’s definitely got this whole step-mom thing down perfectly. Instead, she kisses Connor’s forehead and ruffles his hair. “Wanna go get me some chocolate from the vending machine?” she asks him. “Doctors said no, but I know you can smuggle me some in.”

He runs past them again, swiping the wallet out of Oliver’s hand as he does so, and then finally they’re alone. His arms are just as tight around her, sitting before her to gather her up into his arms and this is what she’s held on for, and what brings tears to her cheeks.

“I knew you’d find me,” she whispered as lips press firmly to the side of her head.

“I thought I’d lost you,” he breathes shakily. “I can’t…God, Felicity, I can’t breathe without you.”

She grips him just as tightly, burying her face into him to surround herself with what she has longed for every day they’ve been apart - his scent, his warmth, his touch. “I had to do it…for Connor. I couldn’t let anything happen to him, Oliver, I-”

“I know,” he assures her, as his hand comes up to comb through the knots in her hair. “I know, I understand. I wish I didn’t have to, but I do…I’d have done the same thing,” he agrees.

And then finally, finally, his lips are on hers. Now she feels like she’s home. Now she can breathe again, just as he can. Now she can feel a heartbeat that isn’t her own, can feel the brush of stubble against her cheek and she feels loved. She feels like herself again, like her true self. She doesn’t pull away until the kiss deepens and her arm raises, snagging on the IV. He pulls back, his hand flying to steady it as his face melts back into concern.

“I’m okay,” she assures him. “They just want me to stay and rehydrate for a while.” The relief is visible in his shoulders. “Hopefully I’ll be able to come home tonight.”

“Speaking of home,” he mutters, reaching inside his jacket. “The uh…when they found you, or not you, rather, the police gave me this.” He pulls out a thick silver neckchain which matches the ring that dangles from it. Her engagement ring. “I hoped you might want this back.”

“Definitely,” she breathes, letting him slip it back onto her hand before she winds her arms around his neck and holds herself to him. His hands stroke up her back, peppering kisses to the side of her head. “How did Connor get here?” she asks. “Is Sandra-?”

“She’s in Central City,” Oliver tells her. “Connor…stays here every other weekend now. I think she agreed to it now as a way to get me through…losing you,” he closes his eyes, but they quickly open and slip to the door again in case his boy comes back. “But we have a proper custody agreement now. This is supposed to be Sandra’s weekend, but when we knew we were getting you back he demanded to be here, so Barry rushed him over. School’s out for a few more weeks, so we’re going to get him for a couple of days.”

“Oh,” she replies, her breath taken away by the fact that in her absence they have achieved everything she wanted for him - he is becoming a real father to Connor and they’ve bonded properly - but more so, it’s a family that has a place for her. There was talk of we and us and everything else that signals her and Oliver creating a family that has a place for them and Connor together.

“Is that okay?” he checks quietly. “If you need time…”

“No,” she blurts out, shaking her head. “No, I missed him too. Unless he beat my score on any of our games, because then he’s in big trouble.”


	64. Moving In

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> hysterical-for-joshifer said: I would love a drabble about the end of episode one season four, but not the grave scene.

After he’s taken her against the pillar, they’re enjoying the afterglow on the couch, shrouded in the blanket wrap that Felicity’s been walking around in the majority of the evening. She’s draped over his chest, one leg curled around his thigh as his hand delicately explores the expanse of her back. If he has to place a ranking on it, Oliver enjoys these moments more than the sex, because this is…them.

While he’s spent years curbing his imagination when it came to Felicity, this is one indulgence he did allow himself. It was what used to calm him after his more vivid nightmares - the possibility of her in his arms. He’d have pictures her blonde hair tickling his chin, how her breath would feel against his neck, her skin beneath his palm and her heartbeat beside his, and he’d remember how to breathe again.

Now, he has this. This is everything he’s wanted since the day he realised that he loved her, and it’s exactly as he imagined it. It’s warmth, it’s perfect, and it’s her. So he enjoys these moments, when it’s just the two of them, the scent of sex lingering on their skin, the brush of her skin against his, and this, he knows, is how he wants to spend the rest of his life, with this woman’s head against his chest and her laughter—

Her laughter?

“What’s so funny?” he asks, as she hides her sniggers into his shoulder.

“We just had sex,” she giggles. “With the lights on…near a full length window….that doesn’t have curtains…”

And then he’s laughing with her, his face buried into her hair as he rolls onto his side and slips that little bit closer into her.

“At least the neighbours know who we are now.”


	65. The Right Moment

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> broadwaygleek4life said: Prompt: based on proposal video that leaked last night?
> 
> broadwaygleek4life said: Prompt: Based on new speculations, Felicity gets kidnapped at Christmas party right after Oliver proposes or before Oliver has chance to propose? Also please have Mama Smoak in this too!

“Are you okay?” he asked her when she rubbed at her temple again.

Felicity’s eyes flickered open, dropping her hand to his as she flashed him a smile. “I’m fine. Just a headache, I think it’s the camera flashes.”

That, unfortunately, wasn’t something he could help. But still, he brought his hand up to her waist. Despite the flashes of cameras to their side, it was far more sheltered where they stood away from the crowd, but as this was the public celebration of his election as mayor of Star City everyone wanted a good shot of the mayor and the CEO of the most promising company in the city.

“Come with me,” he said, slipping his hand down to hers and tugging on it with a mischievous smile.

“Oliver,” she told him with a hint of a smile. “We can’t just run out, this is your party…”

“Just for a second,” he tempted her. “I just need…a moment of you.”

At that, she couldn’t resist, and when he tugged on her hand next she couldn’t resist, and they stole away from the crowd. Her hand in his alone made his stomach twist. Twelve hours ago he wasn’t even sure that she was alive, after Darhk’s campaign of terror on the city robbed him of his girl at his side, and it was only around midday that he’d brought her back to his side. They’d found her slumped, barely conscious in an alley, Diggle had gotten to her first. When his friend had handed him the exhausted body of the love of his life, and she’d linked her arms around his neck, he’d dropped down to his knees in his compulsion to surround himself in her.

“We can skip the rest of this,” he told her as they came to a more secluded garden area, the fairy lights casting an air of romance that the campaign setting just a few hundred meters away.

“Oliver, this is your night,” she laughed at the idea. “We can’t skip this.”

“Say the word, and we can get out of here,” he told her. “Go home, open a bottle of wine…”

“Oliver,” she cut him off, placing her hands on his cheeks as they came to a stop. His hands cupped her elbows and he drank in every part of her - her shining eyes, the gentle flush on her cheeks, the bright pink of her lips. “I know you’re worrying, but I’m fine,” she pressed. “Tomorrow we can stay in bed all day and I’ll even let you fuss over me, but this is a huge night for you, for both of us, and I am so proud of you for coming this far, so don’t think for a second I’m going to miss any part of this.”

Over her shoulder, he saw a flash of blonde and other shapes moving that suggested the rest of their family were close. He’d asked them to be part of this. Not to overwhelm, but to be part of it. When they’d settled into the first time together they hadn’t stopped to make sure their families were part of it, but this time Oliver wanted them to do this right - surrounded by the people who loved him.

She followed his gaze over her shoulder, whipping so quickly she stumbled a little and he tightened his grip on her arms. “Felicity-”

“I’m fine,” she told him, looking back at him and adjusting her stance. “Damn shoes, I knew they were too high, but I couldn’t resist them,” she chided herself. “What is everyone staring at us for?” she asked him curiously. “Are we being pranked?”

“I asked them to be here,” he told her softly, drawing his lip between his teeth for a moment. “I did ask them to be…discreet, though.”

She arched her eyebrow at him. “What’s going on?”

“I’m not waiting anymore,” he announced, casting his eyes upwards before took both her hands in his, his thumb stroking over her palm.

“Oliver…” she murmured softly, her forehead creased in confusion.

“I’ve spent a lot of time trying to make this moment perfect,” Oliver explained, looking down at her hands as he tried to contain his nerves. “I’ve spent…months, trying to figure it out. I was trying to plan this grand gesture to show you how much you mean to me, and then I realised that nothing about our life is perfect. We aren’t perfect. We thrive on messy and complicated and that’s how we came together, and no matter how much we try to keep ourselves out of it, we keep coming back to this life. But nothing I could have planned could have been as perfect as you are. You are…the sun. The light in the darkness. You’re wrapped up in every part of me now and if the last twenty-four hours are anything to go by, I wouldn’t be able to survive without you.”

Her hands squeezed his, locking their fingers together. “But you found me and I’m back, so we’re fine, right?” She cast her eyes over her shoulder to where the other stood. “Why are they here? Is this the ‘because of the life I lead’ speech again? Is my Mom here for emotional support for a break up? Because I thought we were doing great at this balance of good and evil…not that what we do is evil, I…”

He fell to one knee on the ground, silencing her. The hand he released raised to her lips, clamping down over her mouth.

“This isn’t a break up, is it?” she realised.

“No,” he smiled.

“Are you-?”

“Felicity, there’s not going to be a perfect moment for this because there’s not a single thing in my life that could be as perfect as you are. And I’m tired of waiting for the right moments, because there’s never going to be one. I know that I’m in love with you, I know that I love who I am because of you, and I don’t need anything more than that.” He shook his head slightly. “But because of you…I can finally want so much more from my life. I want it all, Felicity, I want the house, I want the tacky ‘his and hers’ mugs we saw in Coast City,” her reacting breath comes out in a laugh. “I want a family someday. I want kids with your eyes and your smile, and I want everything with you. Only with you.”

“Oliver,” she whispered breathily.

“Felicity Smoak,” he smiled up at her, reaching into his pocket and taking out the ring he’d been carrying for months. “Will you marry me?”

She dropped down before him, onto her knees the same as his. “Yes,” she breathed out before she leaned in and pressed her lips against his. He welcomed that for a moment, let his heart jump with the acknowledgement that she had said yes, that she had agreed to marry him, but he parted from her when their grins were too broad to keep going. Then he slid his family ring onto her finger and pulled her up with him, pulled the love of his life into his arms, the woman he loved, his fiance, his wife-to-be…

And she collapsed back down to the ground.

–

“I told you I want to know what’s going on right now.”

“I’m sorry, Mr. Queen, but-”

“No, don’t apologise to me,” he snapped, slamming his hand on the table. “Just tell me where the damn doctor is who knows what’s wrong with my fiance!”

“Mr. Queen-”

“Oliver.”

The voice at his side was softer, yet far sterner at the same time. The hand on his arm was almost familiar, when he turned his head to the voice it was Donna at his side. They rode in the ambulance together when Felicity collapsed, and after two hours the doctors at Starling General had no idea why. He cursed himself for not bringing her to the hospital earlier when she’d insisted she was fine.

“This isn’t where you need to be right now,” Donna reminded him, tugging on his arm just enough to lead him away from the nurses station and back to the private room that Felicity lay in.

“I need to-”

“No,” Donna said, forcing him down into the chair at her side with far more force than he’d believed of her. “Stop running around the hospital trying to fix everything and just be here with her,” she said with her voice cracking. “You need to be here when my little girl wakes up.”

He tilts his head up to her. “Donna-”

“Don’t you fight with me on this, Oliver Queen. I have Vegas Mom skills you’ve never seen and you will not win.”

He nodded, lowering his head as he took in the still form in the bed. Suddenly, the need to touch her, to hold her, was overwhelming, but all he could do for now was to shift his chair closer to the bedside and take her hand, running his thumb over the inside of her palm, toying with the engagement ring on her finger.

–

Four hours later, Oliver saw red when the doctors tell him that they can’t find any medical reason why she isn’t regaining consciousness. Instead of throwing his first into the nearest wall or screaming about their capabilities, he called Barry, who did manage to find a trace of a toxin in her blood. She’d been dosed with something slow acting after Darhk had left her for them to find. He’d been able to counteract the effects with an antidote they spent a night developing, and finally, three days later, Felicity opened her eyes.

“Felicity,” he murmured, directing her gaze to his by cupping her cheeks when her eyes searched the room. As soon as she found his eyes she relaxed, leaning into his palms as if she could absorb his strength through them. “How are you feeling?”

She gave a few long, heavy blinks before she responded, placing her hands over his. “Tired,” she whispered out.

This, thankfully, was a Felicity he recognised. This was not a Felicity in pain. This was a Felicity who’d been woken too early, who wasn’t ready to leave the bed yet, who wasn’t quite presentable to face the day yet. This was a Felicity who wanted to bury herself under a blanket and resume sleeping.

This was his Felicity.

He raised his lips to her forehead, lingering when she released a contented hum. “Get some sleep if you need to,” he told her gently. “Darhk drugged you, you’ve been out for a few days, but you’re going to be fine now.”

She rolled awkwardly onto her side, trapping one of his hands beneath her cheek as he moved the other to comb through her hair. “Love you,” she muttered, without any recognition of what he’d told her, though her eyes did close again. He imagined she’d probably heard the invitation to sleep again and given up after that.

“I love you, so much,” he murmured back to her, resting his head down beside hers. With his hand sandwiched between her cheek and her hand, he could feel the smooth underside of his mother’s ring on her finger and sighed, relief sagging him in a mild contortion around the hospital bed so he could be as close to her as she needed.

And with her breath on his lips, he finally allowed himself to sleep.


	66. Empty Arms

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> sinceriouslymelodiful-09 said: I know you said we should take it easy with prompts but I feel like I’m having withdrawal symptoms!!:( Oliver and Felicity have no choice but to leave Star City for some very important and dangerous field work. They have to leave heir babies behind and saying goodbye is the hardest part :(

“Felicity,”

“Not yet,” she insists in a small plea, her face pressed into the baby-sweet scent of her son’s hair. In six months he’s not lost it, still smelling like a mixture of newborn and baby shampoo. It’s home, that scent. It’s what she starts and ends her day with and she won’t have it any other way.

Oliver’s hand comes down on her shoulder, rubbing gentle circles into the tense muscles. “The car’s here.”

“I said not yet,” she snapped to his quiet reminder. Guilt stirs in her stomach immediately after - it’s not his fault, and he’s not the one pressing them right now. She shuts her eyes with a heavy sigh. “I’m sorry, it’s not-”

“It’s okay,” he whispers, his lips pressing to the back of her head as his hand reaches around to press against their son’s back, cradling Felicity between her husband and her son.

The car outside is a looking separation they aren’t ready for. She’s not been away from her baby for more than a few hours of babysitting since the day he was born. She’s been expecting the end of her maternity leave to be rough, but that’s still two months away and this was too soon, ar too soon, and far too far away from her baby, and far too everything.

“Do we have to leave him?” she asks, her eyes filling with the hormonal tears she’s still not adjusted to experiencing with motherhood.

“We can’t take him with us,” Oliver reminds her, his voice soft in her ear. “It’s too dangerous.”

The danger, while real, doesn’t seem as horrible to her as the thought of her baby being in another city. Central City in turmoil is no place for an infant, and certainly not when they’re heading straight into the centre of the trouble. It does spark one far from comforting thought in her mind though.

“What if we don’t come back to him?” she whispers.

Oliver’s grip tightens, his head ducking over her shoulder to place a kiss on their son’s tiny head. His deep inhale tells her that they share the same fears, terrified that this still-new life they’ve brought into this world could be left without them. “We’ll come home to him,” he assures her, despite their concerns.

“Will we?” she checks as the baby squirms against her shoulder and she holds him a little tighter, a little nearer, a little closer.

“Always,” he promises.

“I don’t think I can put him down yet,” she murmurs, her lips against his hair again, drinking him in because tonight she’ll sleep and his cries won’t wake her.

“Then don’t,” he tells her. “We have a few minutes.”

They stand together for those few minutes, sharing a quiet moment with their little boy, and when Thea knocks on the door she approaches with her arms open. “Babysitting duty at the ready,” she announces.

Felicity hesitates before she starts to pass their baby over to his aunt. “Remember his bunny toy,” she bit her lip, still cradling her boy’s head once he was out of her arms. “He won’t sleep without it and don’t worry about the tear on the foot, the stitching came loose and he pulled at it, but I meant to repair it and-”

“Don’t worry about a thing,” Thea assures her. “He’s totally safe here with me, and we’re going to have a great time,” she said. “I’m going to keep him up all night for a hardcore Disney party,” she jokes.

Felicity kisses her baby’s head one more time. “I love you, baby boy. I’m going to be home as soon as I can, I promise you. I’m going to miss you so much.”

She mutters her adoration to him until Oliver touches her elbow, and his own goodbye to his son is unheard. She hears his whisper but not the words it contains and when he straights, facing only her, his eyes are blurring through the unshed tears.

They go before she can take her baby back and decide they’re not leaving, and in the car she grips his hand like the lifeline he is to her.

“Just one night,” he repeats every time her hand twitches in his.

“Two weeks ago I’d have killed someone for the chance to get some sleep without the baby waking me up,” she mutters guiltily. “Tonight we won’t be there when he wakes up.”

“We’ll be there tomorrow,” he tells her again.

“Just one night,” she nods, leaning against his shoulder.

His lips find her forehead with a well-placed practice. “It’s another hour’s drive. Try to get some sleep.”


	67. Wildest Dreams

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anonymous said: Prompt: Established Olicity with the return of Slade “I always keep my promises, kid”
> 
> Anonymous said: Since Prompts are open I was wondering if you could write another fic involving the kidnapping of Felicity and Oliver trying to save her.. Like maybe the kidnapper is torturing her in from of him or something! Thanks, and you’re fics are AMAZING! Keep it up :)
> 
> aussieforgood said: You challenged me to come up with something evil so here it is…I never back away from a challenge (I am so so sorry in advance for this): Slade escapes Lian Yu, kidnaps Felicity and Ava and when Oliver goes to save them Slade makes him choose. And no, he does not save them both.

_You see me in hindsight_  
Tangled up with you all night  
Burning it down  
Someday when you leave me  
I bet these memories  
Follow you around 

“I am going to count to ten, and then you’re going to choose.”

This is not a choice he can make. He can’t. It’s not physically possible for him to make this choice. He can’t tear his heart down the middle and throw one half of it away. His heart needs both sides healthy and functioning to keep beating. His heart is incomplete without all chambers accounted for and running the blood through his veins.

“Do you understand, Mr. Queen?”

He doesn’t. He doesn’t understand. He has done a great many terrible things in his life. He has committed sins more unforgivable than any man he knows, but he has also saved lives and made amends and repented for any errors made at his hands.

He knows in his heart that there is nothing he has done that is worthy of this punishment.

“When I finish counting down, you’re going to tell me the name of the person you want to kill.”

He shakes his head because he can’t. He can’t choose. He loves them both with equal and fierce longing that he cannot condemn them to death. He cannot.

“Ten…”

“ _Daddy_ ,” his daughter sobs, in a high-pitched whine of sheer terror, drawing his eyes away from their tormentor and onto his five-year-old. He can’t do this. He can’t see her in this much fear. This is not a nightmare he can sing her through. This is not a skinned knee. This is not a mean boy at school. This is not a broken Blankie. This is not missing Mommy when she has to go away for work.

“It’s okay, baby,” Felicity tells her through her own fear. His wife, his beautiful, perfect, amazing, remarkable wife who can only look at their daughter and strain her arms to get to her. She’s bound too tightly to move, the all are, and it means that neither are able to hold their sobbing child. “Don’t be scared. Don’t be scared, sweetheart, Daddy’s going to take you home-”

“ _NO_!” He cries, the first word torn from his lips as a ragged denial because taking Ava home means leaving Felicity behind. He can’t leave her. He can’t let this happen to her. He can’t sentence the love of his life to death.

“Nine.”

“Daddy is t _aking you home_ ,” Felicity says, her voice spat with determination as she takes her eyes away from their crying girl and looks at him. Her eyes shine with love as she commits herself to this final act of motherhood.

“Don’t,” Oliver pleads, his voice tight.

“Eight.”

“Don’t you dare,” Felicity shakes her head, when she sees that look in his eye, the part of him that wants to choose her, the part of him that clings to the sound of her voice and the swing of her ponytail and the way she takes her coffee. “Don’t you _dare_ choose me, Oliver.”

“Mommy,” Ava sobs, her little mind working over what she’s been hearing and Oliver wonders how much her tiny mind has understood. Does she understand that if she goes home with Daddy that Mommy isn’t coming home with them? Does she understand that if Mommy goes home then she doesn’t get to go anywhere?

“Seven.”

“Baby, it’s okay,” Oliver says, shaking his head at the girl who has never seemed so small as she does in her winter coat with the torn sleeve, not even on the day that she was born and he held her and couldn’t believe that this huge part of their lives could be so tiny. “Daddy’s going to fix it, I promise. I promise you.”

“Ava, look at me. Look at Mommy,” the little girl does, tears streaming on her frightened face as she looks at her mother. “I need you to go home with Daddy,” she says, her voice strong and calm in ways that frighten him. “I need you to be brave and go home with Daddy, okay?”

“I want you, too,” she sobs.

“Six.”

Oliver’s attention turns to their tormentor, to the man who has never ceased to torment him in either dreams or reality. “Kill me,” he pleads. “Please, not them. They never did anything wrong. _Please_ , don’t hurt them. I’ll do anything.”

There’s no response but a further count.

“Five.”

“Oliver, please take her home,” Felicity says, her tears streaming on her face. “She’s our baby. She’s our little girl, and I can’t lose her so you need to take our baby home, _promise me_.”

“Felicity, please-”

“ _Promise me_!” she says louder, a sob escaping as she speaks.

“Four.”

“I can’t choose. I _can’t_ ,” he chokes out. “I can’t do this.”

“You have to choose her, or he’s going to kill her!” Felicity tells him, which makes Ava cry even more because she knows what that word means. “I’m going to be okay. I…I’ll have our baby with me, and you’ll have Ava with you and we’ll take care of them, okay?”

His child is still within her. Their son. They only found out yesterday that they’re having a boy. If she dies, their unborn child dies. Either way, he loses a child today. It takes him back to a hospital room before Ava where they’d stayed overnight terrified they were going to lose her, waiting to see if their pregnancy was lost or not.

He’s supposed to take Ava home. He’s supposed to take their daughter home, and Felicity’s supposed to die and take their unborn child with her.

He’s supposed to lose his family.

He can’t breathe.

“Three.”

“Please, let me say goodbye to her,” Felicity turns to their tormentor, pleading for this final request. “Please, let me hold my baby one more time. Please.”

Ava’s binds are cut, as are Felicity’s, though a gun is pressed firmly to the back of her head to remind her not to make any dangerous moves. Oliver struggles again with his binds as Felicity’s arms fly at the little girl who runs into them. She weeps as she holds her, and he can see her memorising each detail - the freckles on her cheeks, the long eyelashes, the crystal blue eyes, the the way her hair curls so freely, the tiny fingernails…everything she once took in for her hours-old baby girl while they still shared a hospital room.

“I love you so much,” Felicity speaks directly into her crying girl’s ear. “You are my favourite person in the whole world, and I love you _so much_. I will always, always, always _love you_.”

“Mommy, come home,” Ava cries, her arms wrapping tightly around her mother’s neck and she buries in as if she can keep her here by the strength of her tiny arms alone. Oliver’s muscles strain with his need to cover them. “Mommy, _please_.”

“Two.”

“I’m sorry,” Felicity whispers to their baby, but her eyes are raised to Oliver. “I’m so sorry. I love you so much.”

Oliver’s eyes move again, lifting to the ever-present danger at her back. “I am begging you. I will do anything-”

“Oliver!” Felicity snaps, her voice desperate to draw his attention back to her. “Promise me you’ll keep her safe.”

“I promise,” he chokes.

“I love you,” she tells him - the final time. “I always did. I always will.”

“I _love_ you,” he whispers, just for her. Only ever for her.

“One.”

It’s done. The choice has been made for him.

The gun raises, his daughter screams. Felicity uses her last movement to push Ava as far away from her as possible until she lands with her arms around Oliver’s neck. Until he rests his chin on his daughter’s shoulder. Until Slade Wilson raises his gun and puts one bullet through his wife’s temple and one through the curved stomach that houses his child.

“I always keep my promises, kid.”

His daughter screams.

–

His daughter screams.

She screams and he’s out of the bed, moving down the hall before he’s even fully awake. All he can think about is getting to her, getting her safe, protecting her from whatever has drawn such a horrified cry of torment from tiny lips that still kiss her bears goodnight.

When he turns on the light, he sees her curled in a tight ball in the centre of her bed, princess blanket thrown aside from her shaking form, and all he can do is bury her in his arms.

“It’s okay,” he assures her, covering her face in kisses, stroking back her hair, rubbing at her back. “It’s okay, you’re safe. Daddy’s here.”

She clings to him so tightly he can feel her heart racing against his own chest, her breaths panted against his neck and he tries for a long few moments to get her to breathe without having a panic attack.

“Daddy’s got you,” he tells her when she breathes a little easier, looking around with lost eyes.

“Mommy,” she chokes out, her voice ragged from screaming.

He swallows. His mind goes back to that night when Felicity and their child were lost to them. he goes back to that night that has brought them both a lifetime of nightmares that haven’t lessened in six months.

“I’m sorry,” is all he can tell her.

 _Say you’ll remember me standing in a nice dress,_  
Staring at the sunset, babe  
Red lips and rosy cheeks  
Say you’ll see me again  
Even if it’s just in your wildest dreams, ah-ha, wildest dreams, ah-ha. 


	68. Not Now

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> thetaufactor said: Are you open for prompts?? … I have one :P In the next episode of Arrow Oliver is Hit by a car! and I really don’t want to wait till wednesday.. so can you write a prompt of what happen?? Thanks your the best

“Oliver…Oliver!”

He hears her voice calling his name and drifts his attention towards it, his eyes flickering open. He’s been careful to remain still because he knew he landed on his back and hit his head after the impact, a dangerous combination, so he recalls calling through the comms unit to let them know what’s going on, and then an ambulance had arrived.

Of course, Felicity has arrived before he could leave, and he lets out a sigh of relief when he hears her heels clambering into the back of the ambulance and straight to his side.

“I’m okay,” he assures her, gripping her hand when she takes it.

“Okay?” she repeats, her eyes fixed on the neck brace he’s wearing, and he grips her hand a little tighter.

“It’s just precaution, I landed badly,” he tells her. “They don’t think anything’s broken, but they need to do an x-ray, that’s all.”

“Oh, God,” she says, sucking in a breath as she leans over and kisses his forehead. “Don’t terrify me like that.”

“Sorry,” he mutters, as she sinks into the seat at his side and the paramedics start to close up the ambulance. “Is Thea-?”

“She’s fine. I called her, she’s going to meet us at the hospital.”

“She doesn’t have-”

“Yes, she does,” Felicity said firmly. “Thea and I love you more than anyone else on this planet, so if we want to be there at the hospital then we’re going to be there, okay? This is what families do.”

Her stern voice actually brings a smile to his lips, as does her admission. This is what they’ve been merging into while they’ve been gone - the idea of family as a normality. This is normal for Oliver now. He’s been hurt, so his family are going to gather around him and wait with him. After, he knows Felicity will take him home and try to make him stay in bed while she waits on him hand and foot, and maybe he’ll let her for a while, because he’s allowed to indulge in her now.

So he swallows down his protest and replaces it with something he hasn’t told her yet.

“I was going to say…Thea isn’t my next-of-kin anymore,” he says, his next breath stuttering as he looks at her worried expression. “You are.”

“I am?” she repeats.

“The paramedics asked me who I wanted them to call,” he continues. “I told them my fiance was coming.”

“Oh,” she whispers, a far more delicate tone taking over her as she raises his hand and presses a kiss to the centre of his palm. “One day,” she assures him.

“Not now?” he murmurs.

“Ask me properly,” she challenges him with a knowing smile.

He closes his eyes with a similar smile gracing his features. “One day.”


	69. Water Rising

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 4x09 speculation fic  
> firststarsisee said: Ooooh! Anything Chrismakkah with Olicity and maybe Donna?
> 
> olicityforeverqueen said: hi! i loved your last prompt <3 i’ve been thinking a lot about the 4x10 “emotional scene” between oliver and Donna smoak that they promised and a dialogue line that Harvey Spector from Suits said about Donna (his secretary): “i can’t be me, without her.” can you work some of your magic and write us some angst? <3 love xxx
> 
> walkerandbartowski said: Okay i dont know what I’m going to ask this. But its from another show and I want to see it with Olicity. Olicity is engaged and Felicity is in the hospital VERY sick/hurt and they dont know if she will make it so she begs Oliver not to let them take her ring from her.

He can’t breathe. He can’t think. He can’t process anything other than the fact that he cannot help her. He wants to hold her, wants to at the very least see her, but she’s out of reach and almost lost to him.

He’s never felt so close to a heart-attack before, not through all he’s been through, but the only way he can describe it is like a cold hand gripping his heart like a vice, squeezing it so painfully that he’s not entirely certain it’s functioning properly. If he breathes, he can’t feel his chest expanding as much as it needs to, so everything is shallow enough to make his head spin.

“Oliver?”

The usually bubbly voice bursts through his jumbled thoughts just enough to recognise the owner before she’s hurtling into his arms. His vision was once fixed on a single door, but now it’s filled with blonde curls that still smell like hairspray and he can feel an earring getting caught on his jacket.

“Donna,” he chokes out, his arms not reacting at first, but eventually clinging to her as if she’s a lifeline to stop him from drowning.

Drowning. Choking. Suffocating. Like her.

“Where is she?” Donna demands, pulling back and placing her hands on his shoulders. It’s quite a feat considering how small she is.

He can’t speak, only swallows and glances towards the door to the emergency room he’s not been allowed to pass. Donna’s hand comes up to cover her mouth with a small gasp at the sight of the trauma centre. Another doctor enters, and when the door swings open it grants them a moment of access, a sight of her still feet and too many sounds that just don’t make sense to him.

A long, low beep. Charge. Again. Charge. Nothing. Losing pulse. Charge. Nothing. Losing her.

He sinks to the ground.

They’re losing her.

–

“Mr. Queen, do you understand what I’m telling you?”

He snaps back into focus, drawing his eyes away from her bed. He doesn’t understand because he wasn’t listening. He was too focused staring at the far-too-still form on her bed and hasn’t even paid a scrap of attention to what the doctor was telling him. All he knows is that he feels closed off, like his arms can’t wrap tight enough around himself to shield out the cold that comes from not having her at his side.

Donna’s hands cover his arms, standing at her side as she clears her throat. “Can you….could you go over it one more time, please?” she asks.

“We managed to get her heart beating again but we are keeping Miss. Smoak on life support until we’re satisfied that she’s going to handle breathing on her own. Once we have her stabilised we’ll be able to run some tests and check her brain function.”

Oliver’s exhale is so shaky he feels it in his kneecaps, his hands come up, pushing Donna’s arms away by result, so his hands can rub over his face and up through his hair.

“I know there’s a lot of uncertainty right now, but the main thing to focus on is that she’s alive. We understand the police are looking into the incident, and we’ve asked them to let us know anything that might be of impact that could benefit in her recovery.”

“How bad could it be?” Donna asks.

“It’s hard to tell when it comes to brain function, we really do need to wait until we can run more tests,” the doctor explains. “We know she was pulled out the water quickly enough but the shock of the temperature drop and the deprivation did cause her to go into cardiac arrest which we were manage to stop. We’re optimistic that there won’t be any further cardiac events, we do need to be prepared.”

“When will she wake up?” Donna asks.

“We can’t say. It may be as long as a few days, but we’ll know more when we bring her off life support.”

“But she is going to?” Donna insists, squeezing Oliver’s forearm.

“We’re confident that she will.”

She’s going to wake up. She’s going to live. She’s stronger than whatever Darhk can do to her. She’s going to wake up. She’s going to live. She’s going to wake up. She’s going to live.

“Mr. Queen.”

He looks up now that he’s addressed directly, forcing his hope to aid his concentrating.

“I’m afraid we weren’t able to save the baby.”

No, he was wrong before. This is a heart attack, he’s sure of it. “…what baby?”

–

He’s numb as Donna cries at her daughter’s side.

He watches her stroking back Felicity’s hair - not that she needs it, he’d smoothed it back the moment they allowed him in the room. It’s still wet from the water she was submerged in, and while he wants to be at her side, kissing her hand, her forehead, her cheeks, her lips, he needs to step back and and let Donna see for herself that her daughter’s alive. Needs to process that his son or daughter isn’t.

They force their focus on Felicity until the middle of the night, when the nurses have brought each of them blankets because of the winter chill and he declines his because Donna’s only wearing the dress she wore to the gala and she’s clearly freezing. But when he feels her settling the blanket over his shoulders he sags, inhaling deeply as if he’s taking his first breath.

“I only looked away for a second,” he tells Donna, now that her gentleness has caused him to find his voice. Her hand lingers on his shoulder and squeezes before she moves her chair so they’re side by side. Oliver’s right by her head, so close that one arm is permanently beside her face, stroking her forehead because he doesn’t know what else he can do. Donna takes up her hand.

“What did he do to her?” Donna asks at last, the question she’s been afraid to ask since she arrived at the hospital.

“He tied her to an old block of iron and threw her in the bay,” he mutters, as if were a disbelief that anyone could disregard the great Felicity Smoak so carelessly. “He wanted me to hurt, so he waited until we at our happiest and he tried to take her away from me.”

“Who got her out?” she asked.

“Me and Digg,” he breathes. “She was awake. I did CPR, she was awake in the ambulance she…” he bowed his head because her lips are still blue where they’re trying to warm her up. “They were taking out her earrings and she was begging me not to let them take her ring because she’d only just got it. She was afraid she’d lost it in the water.”

Next, her hand comes out to clasp over his. His eyes tear up because he knows what she’s going to ask, the elephant in the room he’s been trying not to think about because his full focus needs to be on the fact that Felicity’s still alive, not of what they lost.

“Did you know about the baby?” she asks.

“No,” he whispers, almost biting through his lip in a bid not to cry like a little boy, because he’s been here before, been told a baby of his has been miscarried, and it never hurt as bad as this one does. 

Because it’s her. 

Because it’s them. 

–

“Don’t leave her,” Donna tells him the next morning, when the sun rises and their friends have visited and brought coffee. Oliver’s standing by the window, part of him itching with the waiting because he wants to be out with the others, hunting down Darhk, but there’s no way he’s going to leave Felicity right now. He looks up when Donna speaks, and she’s finished gently pulling a comb through Felicity’s hair because it’s dried straw-like and dirty from the water in the bay.

“Don’t leave her over this,” Donna repeats when he says nothing, and he can see now that she’s crying. “I lost…losing a baby is what broke her father and I, in the end,” she confessed. “He wasn’t treating me well, so after we lost the baby I didn’t want to try for another one, and that was what broke us.”

He’s moving across the room like gravity. There’s something about Smoak women with tears on their cheeks that shatters him.

“She loves you so much. Too much,” Donna adds, shaking her head as adjusts the heating blanket covering her daughter. “I’m sure she’s going to survive this, but when she finds out what she lost…she won’t survive losing you too.”

“She’s not going to,” Oliver insists, reaching into his pocket for the engagement ring the doctors had needed to remove during her life-saving treatment. He puts it back on her finger where it belongs, where he’d placed it a mere hour before Darhk tried to take her from him. “She’s going to wake up, she’s going to be fine, and I’m going to marry her.”

–

Oliver’s asleep when she wakes the next evening, and he jumps into alertness when he hears her breathing harshly and Donna calming her down. She relaxes a little when he reaches her side, but they call for the doctor anyway because brain damage is something they’re afraid of. After they’ve checked her, satisfied that she’s fully functional, they tell her what happened, tell her the risks, tell her what she’s lost.

And she crumbles.

She knew.

Donna gives them some privacy, and Oliver finally lets himself grieve with her, the two of them embraced in her hospital bed. “I was going to tell you,” she confesses when their tears give way to a pained silence between them. “But then you proposed and I was so happy and so distracted and then-”

“We’ll be okay,” Oliver cuts her off, his face buried against her hair. “We’re gonna be fine, I promise.”

“What do we do now?” she asks.

“We go home,” he whispers. “We grieve our loss. And then we go after him for what he took from us.”

“Okay,” she mutters, her hand gripping tight to his.

Because they have a plan. And they can breathe when they have a plan.


	70. Tendons

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> queeningrid said: I love your stories so much… My prompt is Oliver suffering from an unknown illness that’s been affecting him in the field. How he deals with that once he discovers what it is..

Thud. Thud. Thwack!

Oliver swore as his third arrow missed the target face by two inches and landed in the wall beside it. He dropped the bow to his side as he stalked towards it, taking it out from the now-splintered drywall it had hit. It was one of fourteen holes that almost completely perforated the surface, and he had a feeling that it would just add to a long list of reasons that they’d probably have to obliterate the basement before selling the place on. He’d also damaged the tip of the arrow this time, so he tore it off and left it on the ground as he marched to the other targets he’d been working on.

Inches off. Again. He took them out quickly, glancing around to make sure that no one was witnessing his shambled display. He couldn’t even hit the inner circle on the damned kids archery targets he’d printed for his seven year old to practice on.

Tommy loved the targets that Oliver had set him up in the lair. He was proud of his father’s night job as the Green Arrow. It was much easier for him to justify spending an entire Sunday practicing his aim when he could take his son with him, and there was nothing Tommy wanted more than to spend an entire day being just like his Dad.

But Oliver was struggling to keep up. His injuries were increasing, all relating to his right wrist and shoulder, and eventually he’d given in to Felicity’s insistence that he get it looked at by a doctor when winter hit and he could feel his body locking up painfully in the cold.

Rheumatoid arthritis. Early on-set.

He hadn’t hit a target properly since, as if the diagnosis was a deterrent in itself. It had been a week almost, and it wasn’t getting any easier to say. He hadn’t told anyone other than Felicity, and that morning he’d snuck out at the crack of dawn to ensure that he didn’t have to see his son’s disappointed face when he realised they weren’t having their usual Sunday training day.

His body was betraying him. Seizing up and locking in place.

He took an extra arrow from his set to replace the broken one and stood to face the target once more. Raising the bow in front of him, he kept his arms rigid to hide what he was desperately trying to hide - the tremor on his hand. It radiated from the pain of keeping his shoulder in position against its will.

Shaking his head, he took a step to the left to account for the tremor, only to swear again when it flew right off target.

“Stop.”

Her voice stilled him before he could drop the bow, but he didn’t fight her when she took it from him. He moved as if gravity took over him, lowering onto a stool and shutting his eyes when he felt her hands ease the muscle of his shoulder.

She’d been doing it every night for weeks. He used to give her back rubs when she came home from work as a treat, now he relied upon the touch of her hands to ease the pain that preventing him sleeping with more severity than his nightmares ever did.

“Why are you doing this to yourself?” she asked him.

“This is who I am, Felicity,” he stressed, his head dipping as her thumbs eased at a particularly pained point near his shoulder joint.

“This isn’t the first time you’ve had to find out who you are,” she reminded him, drawing images of road trips and sunsets that for once, didn’t comfort him.

“I had you to grow with then,” he swallowed. “Whoever I was going to be, I had you.”

“You still have me,” she pointed out, and he drew her hands over his shoulder, pulling himself into her embrace and kissing the palms of her hands.

“I know,” he spoke against her fingers. “I have you, and I’ll always have you, and you helped me discover the person I am who I enjoy being and now…”

“Now you’re worried you can’t be that person anymore,” she finished for him. “You’re worried it’s being taken away from you.”

He didn’t answer. He didn’t need to.

She leaned over him, kissing the top of his head before she moved to kneel before him. “Do you know what your son’s doing right now?” she asked him. He just swallowed thickly. “He’s at home, picking your favourite movie out of his favourite movies, because it’s Sunday and he misses you.” He sighed when his head rolled forward, guilt pooling in his stomach. “It’s not about the archery, Oliver. It’s about spending time with you.”

“This morning I struggled to grip a door handle,” he confessed. “What happens when I struggle to grip his hand and he gets hit by a car? What if I can’t lift him up in a crowd? What if-”

“Oliver, stop,” she said quietly, her gentleness working far better than any firmness would. “This is not going to stop you being a good father.”

“Felicity-”

“Tommy is _our_ son,” she cut him off. “We made him, so if anyone’s allowed to screw him up it’s us, okay?” she tried for a smile, but when he didn’t match it she placed her hands on his cheeks. “He’s ours, so the only person who gets to tell you that you’re being a bad parent is me. And I’m telling you that your son thinks you’re amazing just the way you are.”

“Except I can’t do half his favourite things any more,” he mumbled.

“Then you’ll find new ones,” she told him. “He’s not going to love Ninja Turtles and the Blue Jays forever-”

“He’s always going to love the Blue Jays,” Oliver told her sternly, only to be met with her smile. He’d proved her point, and he sighed. “You’re right.”

“I know,” she smiled. “Come on, let’s go home and figure out a new way to spend your Sundays.”


	71. Ready, Set, Go

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> tread-the-stars said: Ok so prompt set during this season and Felicity gets sick just with like the flu or a stomach virus and Oliver is secretly excited bc he thinks Felicity is pregnant but when he finds out he’s not he’s like surprised by how bummed out he is and Felicity notices and they have to have their first real convo since ivy town about possible future smoak-queen babies
> 
> Anonymous said: Felicity is terrified to tell Oliver she is pregnant. Hectic lives, Damien Darhk. So she hides it for a few weeks until she absolutely has no choice but to tell him.
> 
> dontyou-forgetaboutme89 said: I know you’re probably busy, but I really need to read a fic where Felicity tells Oliver she is pregnant by buying a onesie that says “My Daddy is a Superhero” and Oliver just cries and is so happy because of everything he’s been through he can’t believe that this is his life.

She rests her head back against his shoulder and his arms fall around her. He’s been stroking her back for the last twenty minutes while she retched over the toilet bowl, her stomach already empty so there’s nothing left to come up, but any time she takes as much as a sip of water she’s ended up back in the bathroom while her stomach heaves.

“All done?” he whispers as her forehead presses against his neck. It’s the smallest effort she can possibly make to get comfortable, but she doesn’t respond at all except to release a whimpered sob. “Hey…”

She sits up again, leaning her forehead on her knees. “I’m so _tired_ , Oliver,” she tells him, her voice strained with the effort not to cry.

He moves with her, stroking her back as he draws her back into his arms. His heart aches for her, because seeing her like this is painful. It’s been three days, and she’s barely slept, she’s not eaten, and he’s not even sure that she’s getting enough water. They’ve managed to get a few ice cubes worth of water into her system, but it’s not enough and she’s getting weaker. They’ve agreed that if she can’t keep water down by the end of day three she’ll consider at least calling the doctor, but he’s watching her become more and more disorientated each time she lifts her head and he’s considering a trip to the emergency room.

“I think we need to go to the hospital,” he tells her, dropping his lips onto her temple.

The last few days she’s fought him on it, even in weak protests, but she’s dehydrated and he’s worried, and he’s even more concerned when she doesn’t answer him at all, merely hitches her breath as if her stomach’s still twisting. He whispers her name, prompting her again to answer. “I just want to sleep,” she tells him in a breathy tone, something barely heard and he doesn’t waste another second before lifting her weak form into his arms.

–

At the hospital they ask questions she’s not awake enough to know - when she last ate, when she last drank a whole glass of water, how long has the vomiting being going on, when she last had a period—

—and he’s looking up the date they went to Table Salt for dinner because he remembers she got her period the day after, and then he realises why they’re wanting to know when her last period was.

Because it was eight weeks ago.

–

They manage to get some fluids and nutrients into her system, and a few hours later she’s more aware. Her body has a little more energy, which she uses to shift onto her side and face the chair that Oliver’s pulled up to the side of her bed. “We can go home soon,” he tells her, kissing the back of her knuckles when she tightens her hand around the one he’s been holding her with for hours. “They’re just waiting for the blood test results.”

“It’s a pregnancy test, isn’t it?” she whispers in something very similar to fear.

–

“Are you disappointed?” she asks later, when they’re sent home with the diagnosis of a bout of stomach flu and stress. The stress and sickness being the cause of her delayed period. She’s still not feeling too good, but she’s at least been given some anti-sickness medication that should make it easier to ride out the rest of the illness.

“Yes and no,” he confesses, his hand boldly rubbing over her stomach as she leans back against his chest.

“Why yes?” she asks.

“Because I’m so in love with you, and it’s all I want for us some day,” he tells her, burying his face into her messy ponytail because he did spend an entire morning in hospital thinking that she’s possibly carrying his child and that idea has been perfect.

“Why no?” she asks with more hesitance.

He sighs, his breath tickling the back of her neck as he moves his hands to her thighs rather than her stomach. “Because I could tell you aren’t as ready as I am.”

That she doesn’t correct him tells him all he needs to know.

–

Eight months later they’re stressed, they’re terrified, and they’re completely absorbed in what it will take to defeat Damien Darhk, and there’s absolutely no time in all of that to think about having a baby. There’s barely time to sleep, they haven’t eaten a meal at the same time in three weeks, and when they do get time to sleep together it’s usually hurried in the few showers a week they take to wash away the grime of day jobs and night jobs sucking the life out of them.

It’s absolutely no time to be having a baby.

Except they are. And after the last talk they have about babies, she’s not entirely sure how that’s going to go down.

–

This time, she wants to be sure. So she goes to the doctor without him after a drug store test taken in her office bathroom confirms what she’s been worried about the last week. A blood test confirms that she’s pregnant, and all she can think is that Oliver’s ready for this. She’s panicked, but he’s ready, and she needs him to know so he can calm her down.

But she stops at the store first.

–

She waits for three days, because the moment she gets home all hell breaks loose. She barely manages to hide her symptoms behind their combined exhaustion, but then everything is over, Darhk is gone, and they’re still standing. They sleep for at least thirteen hours, then he gets up to make them some breakfast and she knows this is it, she has to tell him.

When he comes back, she’s sat in the centre of the bed, facing him. Laid out before her is a green onesie with the slogan of ‘ _my daddy is a superhero’_ sprawled over the front, and a darker green cape attached to the back of it. She’d seen them in the store last Christmas and had planned on getting one for the Diggle’s if their next baby was a boy, but this is a far better use for it.

He stares at it with an unchanging expression until he’s kneeling at the foot of the bed, placing the plate with far too many eggs on it on the carpet. She’s worried about how ready he really is, but then he touches his hand to the word ‘ _daddy_ ’ and she watches him crumble with an emotion she can only describe as ‘ _joy_ ’.

Pure, unrivalled joy.

“Is this real?” he asks quietly. She doesn’t trust herself to speak, so she just nods, but it isn’t enough to for him. He looks up at her, and she can see the tears threatening to touch his cheeks. “I’m gonna need you to say it,” he grins at her.

So she does.

“We’re having a baby.”

The eggs lay forgotten on the bedroom floor as he grips the onesie in one hand, and embraces her with the other.

 

 


	72. Through the Fog

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> aussieforgood said: Evil prompt number 2: Oliver has an accident and ends up with amnesia, He’s forgotten everything post island. Felicity rushes to the hospital with the kids, he doesn’t remember them when they try to hug him and he doesn’t remember Felicity. Do the thing.

She’s gorgeous, he can’t deny that. She’s not his typical type of gorgeous either. He feels like he remembers her but can’t quite place her face. That happens sometimes with girls he’s told he’s met, but he doesn’t see her as his usual type. She knows his name well enough that when he wakes up in the hospital she’s gasping it and leaning over him, pressing her hands to his face. He feels the cold touch of a ring against his cheek, and he wonders how her husband feels about her looking at him the way she is.

The kids look like her. A lot like her. They’re hers, he can tell by the glasses on the little girl and the little boy’s eyes. He’s not sure how old they are, but the girl is older. They run in and it’s his sister - god she grew up so much while he was gone - trying to stop them and then the girl launches herself at him.

His first panic attack starts when she calls him Daddy.

–

They’re talking out in the hall because they don’t want to upset him. He’s thirty-eight years old. He’s lost ten years of his life. He hears words like _retrograde amnesia_ and the blonde woman is crying. He can tell that through the window to his room.

Apparently she’s his wife.

Apparently he’s a father.

–

“You really don’t remember anything?” Thea asks him in the back of the taxi they take to her place. He doesn’t feel right being at this other ‘home’ the doctors try to get him to go to.

“I remember you,” he tells her, without adding that he remembers her being twelve years old and obsessed with crappy reality TV.

But it’s hard, because the walls of her loft are lined with photographs of him and this new family he doesn’t remember.

–

He’s knocking on the door in the middle of the night after he remembers. When she answers, she pulls him in from the rain and it only mildly freaks him out when she hands him a change of clothes that belong to him.

“I lied to you,” he tells her as he makes a grab for her wrist, biting his lip as she looks at him as if she knows him far better than she should. “There was a laptop, I told you I spilled a latte on it, and that was…a lie.”

This time she bites her lip, a glimmer of hope flashing across her face that’s similar to her expression he remembers her having in the hospital when he first woke up. “Let me get you a towel so you can get dry,” she says, stepping away and he hears her mutter the word ‘please’ when she disappears from sight.

She returns moment later with a navy blue towel, one that he uses to rub across his wet hair then presses it to his damp hair and inhales deeply. The scent of this towel is something of himself, combined with a fabric softener he can’t remember smelling for years and something uniquely…home. He hears the laughter in his mind as if it’s right in front of him and it brings a sob of longing with a single word choked into the fabric.

“Ava.”

“Oliver,” Felicity whispers. She places her hands on his shoulders and when he lifts his eyes to hers it makes him realise how small she seems compared to him. He’s seen her with heels on in the hospital, but here she’s wearing pink slippers in the shape of fuzzy rabbit heads and she’s so small. “What are you remembering?”

“The towel, I…” he trails off and tries to cling to what rushed into his mind. His eyes slam close against an onslaught of emotion, something he hasn’t felt since Sara, since Shado, since his father… “I wrapped her in it real tight. She was laughing and I was tell her she was a burrito.”

“We always have Ava Burritos on Wednesdays,” Felicity tells him with an amused smile that has him tearing up. “Wait until you remember Tommy Tacos, they’re a treat.”

This isn’t a man he ever thought he could be - the one that is a good father. They tell him he’s a great father. He feels bad for depriving those poor kids of the father they want back.

–

The next morning he wakes up on the couch to a pair of eyes that match his own staring back at him behind a pair of glasses that aren’t sitting right on her ears. He’s got a compulsion to adjust them but as soon as he’s fully awake it disappears.

“Are you back to normal now?” the little girl asks him.

“I don’t think so,” he whispers to her.

He watches something flicker across her face that can only be described as disappointment. “It’s my birthday next week, will you be back to normal by then?”

“I hope so,” he admits.

Because this little family is kinda perfect, and he knows he doesn’t deserve them with all the things he’s done, but they want him back. And he wants them too.

–

Nothing more comes back, but he turns up at Felicity’s - their - door a week later with a badly wrapped kids microscope kit. “Sh-she told me it was her birthday when I was here last week,” he rushes to explain when she looks at him questioningly. “So I asked Thea and she said that this is what I’d promised to get her, and I didn’t want her to think I’d forgotten her just because I’ve…forgotten her.”

The last two words are whispered, and she swallows before she gives him a smile. He realises now how it looks, that he magically regained his memories and turned up at the last moment to his daughter’s birthday party.

He has to leave before the guilt consumes him.

–

He starts to remember in pieces. The colour red comes back to him the most, as does shocking pink. He startles awake to memories of murders he committed to keep her safe, of pacing the halls with a crying baby, of a top-down porche going off into the sunset and her, her, her.

He gets messages from Felicity every day, but they’re never from her unless he texts her first. Usually Ava texts him. She can’t spell very well but she tells him about her day at school or sends him pictures of something she drew.

He starts waiting for four o’clock to see what she’ll text him next.

–

One night he wakes up at two o’clock in a cold sweat. He remembers Tommy. Not the blonde-haired boy who always asks him if he’s forgotten how to play soccer too, but his best friend, he’s remembering begging for his friend to wake up and he doesn’t and it’s all his fault.

So he goes to the nearest bar and drinks and drinks and wants to lose himself the way he remembers, wants to fall into a woman, fall into a bed, and screw away his feelings.

He lifts his hand to raise at the blonde at the end of the bar who he’s not really into but he knows he needs to get rid of these emotions, and the sight of his wedding ring catches his gaze. He’s searching for the wrong woman.

“My best friend died,” he chokes out when Felicity opens her door to him in the rain for a second time.

She takes him in, hands him the same towel, the same change of clothes, but this time she takes him upstairs to bed and lets him cry in her bed. Their bed.

It feels like home.

He wants it to be his home again.

–

Two days later and it hits him as he walks through the Glades. He looks at the abandoned steel factory and remembers it all. He remembers the vigilante, remembers the lies she never believed, remembers the Count, remembers Russia, remembers the League, remembers all the things that took him from her and every time she brought him home. He remembers _I love you_ , remembers her middle name, remembers the exact time his daughter was born and exactly how long their son’s labor was. He remembers _we’re having a baby_ , remembers _it’s a girl, it’s a boy_ , remembers _I do_.

–

“Felicity Smoak,” he grins when he approaches her in the kitchen making dinner, because he’s retrieved his old set of keys from Thea and he remembers the way the lock jams if you turn it even a fraction wrong.

She jumps a mile, but looks at him as if she’s trying to work out his grin, but there’s a look of understanding and sheer happiness that makes her tear up when he winds his arms around her waist and pull her against him.

He crashes his lips against hers, kisses the love of his life, his wife, the mother of the children he can vaguely hear telling him them to stop being gross and asking when dinner’s ready. When he pulls back, they’re breathless and they both have tears on their cheeks, and they’ll chalk this up to another way she brings him home.

“Hi,” he smiles with his forehead dipped to hers. “I’m Oliver Queen.”


	73. Calming the Storm

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> lovebeasunflowerhannie said:
> 
> Olicity prompt: Oliver having a panic attack when Felicity’s comm cuts out at the lair and she won’t answer his “talk to me felicity.” First panic attack he’s had in a while. Reminds him he’s not all healed.

The static in his ear starts his heart pounding. They’re just outside their new lair and all he can think is that something terrible has happened. There are no lights on. No sound. Nothing to suggest anyone’s even in there. But someone is.

“Felicity?”

Static. _Thump. Thump. Thump._

Where is she?

“Felicity, talk to me.”

Static. _Thump. Thump. Th-thump._

Is she hurt?

“Felicity!”

_Th-thump. Th-thump. Th-thump._

She’s not there.

The next time her name is spoken by someone else. Diggle. Not him. He can just about make out the name through the fog that’s surrounding him, closing in on all sides.

Why isn’t she answering?

Why is the line static?

Didn’t she design this technology to far surpass what they were using before?

Felicity. Felicity. Felicity.

He can’t see her. Can’t hear her. Can’t feel her. Can’t imagine what he’ll do without her if she’s hurt. What if she’s in pain? What if someone has her? What if he’s finally lead her too far into this darkness of a life and someone’s using her against him?

Over the rushing of blood in his ears, he’s thankful that he can’t hear the screams he still hears in his nightmares. It’s like the Gambit going down, everything is muffled sound and sensory failure, his chest burning for air he can’t get enough of.

What if she’s bleeding out? What if she’s dead? What if she’s already gone from him? What if he has to call her mother and tell her that he broke his promise, that he couldn’t keep her baby girl safe? What if he’ll never get to ask her to marry him? What if she’s died and he wasn’t there to hold her hand? What if he doesn’t have the chance to see her one last time?

He feels the gravel beneath his knees, unsure of when he decided to lower to the ground, but it isn’t as steadying as he wanted and he can’t focus on anything in front of him. There is nothing in front of him, everything that was there before has blurred along with his ability to breathe.

Nothing. Nothing but darkness. Nothing but the void.

Nothing but-

“Oliver.”

Nothing but her voice in the storm.

–

She watches him fight back to her as they kneel on the floor of the alley that leads to their back entrance of the lair. Digg had called her up the second Oliver lapsed, and she doesn’t care that her dress is ruined at the hem or that odd stones are digging painfully into her kneecaps, because nothing is as painful as watching the man she loves fight through a storm she can’t calm.

She’s learnt this during their time alone together, back when he’d still dream of the horrors of Nanda Parbat. She can’t fight the waves that consume him, can’t force him to surface, but she can be there the second he does, be his hand to hold, the life-raft that draws him in.

He comes back to her from caresses to his cheeks, repeated words whispered because her voice is stronger to his distress than her hands could ever be.

Oliver. Here. Okay. Safe.

He blinks after a few tense minutes, gasping for breath as if he’s been resurrected and he’s reaching for her shoulders to brace himself. “Oliver, just breathe, it’s okay. Just breathe.”

“What happened?” he asks, looking around them.

“You had a panic attack,” she explains, watching the anxiety flicker in his eyes as he looks down and visible sags. “Hey,” she draws his attention back to her with a hand cupped to his chin. “It’s just one. It doesn’t mean anything.”

He grips her elbows as his breath comes faster. “I thought they’d stopped-”

“It was triggered, it wasn’t random,” she assures him, his eyes raising to search hers. “My comms link cut out, we had a power cut. Completely standard, it came straight back on.”

He sighs deeply, lowering his head to brace it against her shoulder. When her hand comes up to graze circles against his scalp, his heart rate finally starts to slow into something that matches hers - he knows becauses he fists his hand in the front of her dress so he can feel the reassuring pound against the back of his knuckles.

He feels her lift a little, stretch her neck back to ask Diggle to bring her coat and bag out so they can go straight home, and he doesn’t fight it. What he needs right now isn’t to explain himself to his friends and family, he needs to go home with the woman he loves. He needs to lie in their bed and listen to her heartbeat beneath his ear, cradled to her chest like a child. He doesn’t care for the reliance he craves.

And she needs him that close. She needs him in her arms, needs to support him the way he supports her.

“Come on,” she whispers against his temple. “Let’s go home.”

He holds her tighter, his words rumbled into her throat. “I am home.”


	74. Daddy's Girl

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anonymous said: Prompt where Felicity is Damien’s daughter and is convinced that she can be evil. Remember in OUAT how Emma was afraid when she dropped the street light and it hit charming? Kinda like that ..Felicity killing someone and thinking she is his daughter

She drops the gun, and the sound echoes with more resonance than the gunshot.

He can see the repulsion and horror reign her features, the way she realises what she’s done a full eight seconds after she’s committed the act. He watches her eyes slip from a steadfast determination not to die to an empty realisation that she has robbed someone else of that victory.

He watches the love of his life realise that she has killed a man.

–

“Felicity.”

She stares at the carpet, sat on the edge of their bed here he guided her and she hasn’t moved since. Her shaking hands grasp at her knees for some kind of purchase but she’s not seeing anything. It’s like she doesn’t know where she is, and that’s far more important than the glass of water he’s brought her.

He kneels before her, unbuttoning her coat and setting it aside as he lifts the comforter over her shoulders, rubbing her arms through the top. “Felicity, look at me,” he whispers, his voice soft to contrast the harsh grey swimming in her eyes. She doesn’t, so he grips her a little tighter, repeats his words with more firmness until she meets his gaze. “You’re okay,” he assures her.

“I’m a monster,” she mutters.

“You stopped a dangerous man from hurting a lot of people,” he corrects her.

“I killed him,” she chokes out through a sob. “I’ve never killed a man before and he was my–”

“You’re no part of him,” he cut her off, refusing to let her go back down the route they’ve been through for the last seventy-two hours. That she’s his daughter. That she’s created from an evil man. That she could be just like him. “You are the daughter of Donna Smoak, that’s all you need to be.”

“I killed a man,” she repeats, her hands coming out to grip his forearms, steadying herself against him. “Did you hear what he said to me? As he was dying?” she asks. He shakes his head as he holds her. “He said he was proud of me.”

The tears hit her cheeks moments before her head bows, and he’s there with his lips to her forehead in an instant, feeling her sobs heave through her back as she breaks against him. She digs her fingertips into his forearms as if she can cement herself to him and keep as far away from herself as possible.

“He doesn’t get to be proud of you,” Oliver tells her, his lips never leaving her skin as his words muffle against her skin. “Only the people who love you get to be proud of you.”

“He’s proud because I killed. I’m just like him.”

“I’m proud of you,” Oliver insists. “He doesn’t get to be proud of you, but I am. I’m proud of you because without you tonight, he would have killed half the city, and that’s hundreds of thousands of people who get to go home to their families tonight because of you. You did that. _You_.”

“I-”

“-killed a man,” he finishes her sentence. “You took a life, and that’s…horrible. It’s the worst feeling, I know, and I am so sorry you have to go through this, but I promise you know that you’re not going to do this alone.”

“But I killed a man,” she whispers.

“I’ve killed a lot of men,” he reminds her. “Do you love me any less?”

She looks up at him, the understanding in her eyes the only answer he needs.

He stands, drawing her up with his hands in hers and he places a kiss to each of her palms. “Let’s take a shower, get you warm, get you cleaned up and-”

“-I don’t think I can sleep tonight, Oliver,” she cuts him off, shaking her head.

“We’re not going to,” he assures her, sliding his hands up to her shoulders. “We’re going to get warm, clean, get into pyjamas and then we’re going to binge on Netflix until we can’t remember our own lives any more,” he tells her. “Two days, phones off, no internet. Just you and me.” Her eyes shut as if the idea is exactly what she needs, stepping into his embrace and pressing her face to his chest. “You’ll sleep when you’re tired, hon. Right now you’re full of adrenaline, and we’re just going to relax.”

“We can’t ignore this, Oliver,” she whispers.

“We’re not going to,” he assures as his hand roams up and down her spine. “When you find the words, we’ll talk about it, but right now, let’s just get warm, okay?”

“Okay,” she breathes out, sinking against him as he guides her to the bathroom.

They wash away far more than dirt and grime, but the one thing she is certain of when they make it to the couch is that her hands are no longer shaking, and that the ring on her finger means far more to her than whatever hold Darhk felt he had on her.


	75. From The Outside

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anonymous said: You’ve probably gotten so many prompts by now but I have to toss this in. I don’t know if you ever watched Jim and Pam in the office but as a play on them.. Felicity has to go to the hospital for an injury and doctors tests end up showing that she’s pregnant.

“Mr Queen? Your wife’s asking for you.”

Oliver frowns as he gets to his feet, blindly following the doctor through the halls. A sudden pit of concern rushes through him, pooling in his stomach as his mind rushes through everything that might be wrong.

He shoudn’t have let her go in alone. He should have stayed with her. Why has he spent the last thirty minutes in the waiting area with her tablet trying to organise her work emails into the folders she’s set up?

They’d ended up in the emergency room after she fell in the new lair and hurt her ankle badly enough that they thought it might be broken. A sprain, yes, they could fix that, but the bruise was appearing quickly and it was too swollen to get any good idea how bad it was, and none of them were trained doctors, so the emergency room was their best option.

Once he was on his feet and following the doctor, the rest of his friends started to follow. Thea and Diggle had come with them, when Oliver disappeared into the examination room with the doctor and Felicity, they stood near the blinds and looked in.

“Thea, give them a moment,” Diggle tells her, leaning against the wall.

“What did they need Oliver for?” she asks curiously, peeking through the blinds to try and see what’s going on, but all she can see is Felicity on the examination table, still in her work dress, with her bare feet swinging off the edge. She’s gripping the edge of the table, and she’s smiling whilst biting her lip.

“Maybe she needs a shot, you know how she hates needles,” Diggle points out.

“She looks fine,” Thea adds.

“Then you don’t need to spy.”

“I’m not spying,” Thea defends, but Diggle just raises an eyebrows at her. “Okay, fine, but that’s my sister-in-law and I’m being a concerned sister.”

“You’re spying,” he tells her.

But Diggle’s curiosity peaks too, and he turns to match Thea’s position spying on the couple inside.

So they get to see how Felicity’s face is trained on Oliver’s, as the doctor speaks.

How Oliver’s arm is settled on Felicity’s back in concern.

How his expression shifts from panic to something completely blank, his jaw slackening and lips parting until he’s completely frozen.

How his eyes shift to Felicity and her grin expands as she nods.

How he rushes to close the gap between them and almost lifts her off the examination table with the strength of his embrace.

How he kisses her.

How he looks at her.

How his hand drops to her stomach and they look at each other as if the world finally makes sense.

“Oh my god,” Thea gasps, her hand flying to her mouth. “Is she-?”

“I think so,” Diggle half-laughs as they watch the young couple.

Thea squeals so loudly that the couple’s heads lift inside the examination room. Oliver’s face is damp with tears, grinning in a way that neither of them recognise, and he gives them a watery nod of confirmation as Felicity’s hand comes to rest over his.

“About damn time.”


	76. With Love

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anonymous said: Felicity is pregnant and Damien Darhk discovers this before she can tell Oliver so he threatens her and her unborn child that if she tells Oliver he will hurt her. Oliver finds out, does his PROTECTIVE OLIVER THING, DO YOUR COOL WRITING THING. Please :) :) :)

“Where is she?”

She hears his voice before she even hears the door close downstairs, desperate, fierce, dangerous. She’d asked Digg to be alone when they came back, but only so she could bury herself into the bed - something that smells like him, that feels like this morning when his arms were around her and she felt completely and utterly safe.

“She’s in the bedroom,” Digg tells Oliver, and it reminds her how completely not-safe she feels.

She waits for him in the same position she’s curled into in the ten minutes they’ve been waiting for Oliver to get home. Her shoes are kicked haphazardly on the floor at her side of the bed, but her back is at the centre of the headboard, her knees tight to her chest with her arms crushed against her torso. Her thumbnail has been bitten down so close to the skin she knows it’s going to be painful any minute now but she can’t stop, and she’s pretty sure she’s borderline rocking in her place.

“Felicity?” he rushes into the bedroom, not even bothering to shut the door she’d closed behind her earlier in her bid for solitude.

The words that have had her biting her tongue since she heard him enter the loft spill out from her shaking lips. “Oliver, I’m so sorry, I–”

“It’s okay,” he assures her, his voice soft as he sits on the edge of the bed next to her and draws her into his arms. “You’re fine, I’m home.” Despite his words, his hands search her, his comforting touch disguising his determination to check her for any injury until his words repeat again with a touch of relief.

“I didn’t know he was going to be there, I promise-”

“Felicity, stop,” he tells her, and she holds her breath - the only thing that will stop the words bursting past her lips. “Take a breath…with me, that’s it,” he coaches her, his hands cradling her cheeks as she slowly starts to calm in a way that can only come from his touch. “Okay, start from the top,” he whispers.

“I can’t,” she chokes out.

He frowns, tilting her jaw up so he can see her face. “You’re safe, Felicity.”

“It’s not-”

“Talk to me,” he urges.

But the words die on her tongue. For once, she has no words for him, because words have consequences and the results of telling him what happened are something she isn’t prepared for. This carries a weight she cannot let him burden because this time, she can only protect with her silence. “If I tell you, he’ll…”

“Oliver,” a voice interrupts from the door. Digg’s standing there, a sombre expression on his face that softs when he looks at Felicity, but then he sighs. “There’s something you should see.”

–

“Felicity.”

She knows he’s going to ask again. Whatever they’ve shown him, he’s going to ask - nay, demand - to know what really happened now. She can see it in his posture when he closes the door this time, giving her privacy in case the open door prevented her explanation before. It brings tears to her eyes, ones that she forces in by slamming her eyes shut.

“Oliver, I’m sorry, I can’t-”

“I know,” he says quietly, as he sinks back into place at her side.

Her eyes open slowly, watching him carefully for any reaction, but there is none. There’s only a softness, a relief, but also an acceptance. “What?”

“Barry found security footage. We heard the conversation Darhk had with you.”

He knows. Which means he knows everything. He knows what she’s hidden from him, and her next inhale is sharp. “I’m sorry.”

“Why are you sorry?” he frowns,

“I should have told you, but-”

He cuts her off with a hand cupped to her cheek, his other finding hers and squeezing it tightly. “He threatened you, I know.”

“I’m so sorry,” she repeats, turning her head away from his hand, because now he knows she’s been keeping things from him she can’t find the same comfort from his touch.

“Hey, look at me,” he urges gently, guiding her back to him and shifting until he’s right in front of her, stroking his thumb over her cheekbone until she’s leaning into his palm. “When I said you’re safe, when I said everything is fine, I meant it,” he assures her. “Darhk isn’t going to touch you. I promise you.”

Guilt settles heavily in her stomach. “He said if I told you about it he’d-”

“I know what he said, and I’m not going to let that happen,” he cut her off, his voice more than a threat, but a promise. It’d be romantic if she hasn’t heard the same level of threat against her in the same hour, rather than this one he makes in her favour.

“He’s dangerous, Oliver,” she shudders out.

“Not as dangerous as I am to him.”

That voice, that ripple of danger that doesn’t just resonate in his tone but seeps into every sinew of his body, brings a shiver to even her spine - she can only imagine what will befall Darhk at his hands.

“I don’t want you to get hurt,” she murmurs.

“Felicity…he does not get to come to the place where you work and made threats against our family. He isn’t going to hurt you…” he assures her, but she watches his composure slip out of control as he draws in a breath that hitches and moves their joined hands own to her stomach. “…either of you,” he corrects himself in a sigh.

She swallows, biting at her lip as she feels her stomach jump beneath the palm of his hand. “I was going to tell you, I promise you, I just-”

“Hey, it’s okay,” he assures her with a smile that graces his lips for the first time since he’s come home. It’s small, but it’s real, and it’s that special smile of pure joy that she first saw when she stopped him falling off the dam. “It’s…a huge thing, Felicity. If you need time to process it, I understand.”

“I don’t think I have…” she shakes her head, because how she supposed to comprehend that there’s a person growing inside her? Sure, it’s small, but it’s a person that’s going to have tiny eyelashes and little baby fingernails and little everything. “I just found out and then the next day he was there, and I was trying to figure out how to tell you and he said if I did then he’d kill me and he’d kill the baby and that he’d make you watch and I couldn’t—I didn’t know what to do, Oliver, I don’t know what to do,” she was babbling again, but her heart was pounding.

“You don’t need to do anything, let me take care of it, okay?”

She shakes her head firmly. “I don’t want him to hurt our baby, Oliver-”

“That’s not going to happen, Felicity,” he promises her, not expecting her head to dip when the tears her cheeks. “Hey, don’t cry, it’s okay.”

“It’s not okay, Oliver!” she protests loudly, her voice high-pitched as she wiped furiously at her damp cheeks “I had…I had a plan, I was going to tell you tonight and now you know and it was…2 she slumps, her shoulders sagging as she rests her head in the palm of her hands. “it was supposed to be special and he ruined it.”

“He hasn’t ruined anything,” Oliver assures her, but she just tightens her fists in her hair and shakes her head.

“He has, he-”

“Felicity, we’re having a baby,” he half-laughs, and that causes her to look up. He pulls her into his arms, his lips finding her forehead with a practiced ease, and despite the fury simmering in him, she feels the peace that overwhelms him. “It doesn’t matter what Darhk says, or does. Nothing matters, except that we’re going to have a family.”

“You’re happy about this, right?” she checks

“Right now I’m angry, but not at you,” he replies honestly. “I’m angry at Darhk, and that he used this against you, but I’m so happy beneath that. I am having a baby with the woman I love, and nothing makes me happier than that,” he nestles his head against the top of hers.

“But you need to go and be angry first,” she finishes for him.

“I need to go and make sure that Darhk knows what he can and can’t touch first,” he corrects her. “I’m going to go and pay him a visit, but I want you to stay here with Diggle.”

“No.”

He sighs as he lifts his head. “I am not having you-”

“No, I mean, you should take Diggle,” he tells her. “For backup. I can stay here with Barry,” she suggested.

“Felicity, I would feel better if-”

“Barry can get me out of here quickly if anything happens,” she points out to him.

He lingers on the idea for a moment, but he surrenders the argument with a kiss to her temple and a squeeze of her hand. “Anything seems wrong, and I mean anything, you run. Promise me.”

“I promise,” she nods.

“And when I get back, you can tell me how you were planning to,” he tells her, watching the corners of her lips lift for the first time.

–

He limps in the door later coated in blood that doesn’t belong to him. His knuckles are bruised, one may be fractured at his best guess, but it’s a problem for the morning because he merely manages to nod his assurance to Felicity before she’s telling Barry he can leave and Oliver’s walking headfirst into the shower.

She doesn’t join him, because tonight isn’t a night for them to lose themselves in each heated touches. Tonight is something far more intimate, so when he leaves the bathroom he puts a pair of sweatpants on before he turns to see her sitting on the bed.

She’s toying with a piece of fabric in her hands, and he eases into the space beside her as he asks her what she’s looking at and she places it in his open palms.

A tiny white onesie - are babies this small? - with the slogan ‘I love my daddy’.

And finally they can react how they wanted to from the start, without fear, without threats, without danger. With happiness, with excitement, and with stolen touches.

With love.


	77. Patience is a Virtue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anonymous said: Prompt: Felicity knows about the rings but instead of happiness, she worries that Oliver has changed is mind. A little angst because joy.
> 
> DISCLAIMER: I wrote this 2 weeks ago and now wish I’d posted it sooner.

“We’re doing okay at this whole thing, right?”

The question takes him by surprise, so much so that he pauses over the dishes and frowns over at her. They’ve been in a relatively peaceful silence over dinner, both of them having far too strenuous weeks in the offices to come up with conversation the moment they arrived home. Instead Oliver had cooked while she’d soaked in the bath - each to their own default stress relief - and they’d come together for a meal on the couch.

But now he’s wondering if her silence is something more, because existential questions and doubts are his forte, not hers. “What thing?”

“This…couple thing,” she explains with a small wave of her hand, placing a dried plate back into the cupboard.

His frown deepens, hinted with curiosity as he watches her avoid his eyes. “…Yeah, we’re doing fine.”

“Just fine?” she asks softly.

He takes his hands out of the soapy water and starts to dry off his hands, turning to face her. “…Felicity, is everything okay?”

“Yeah, fine,” she replies quickly, her voice too high to be believable.

“Just fine?” he counters with a raised eyebrow.

She sighed. “Oliver…”

He reaches for her, his hands landing on her wrists after she takes another plate. “Come on, put that down, talk to me.”

The plate returns to the dish rack with a heavy sigh, but while she allows him one of her hands the other comes up to rub across her forehead. “It’s nothing, I’m being stupid,” she mutters.

“I don’t care how stupid it is. Something’s bothering you. Hey, come on. You can tell me anything,” he reminds her, his voice as soft as the wrinkled concern on his face.

“But can you tell me anything?” she asks.

“Felicity…”

“That wasn’t fair, I’m sorry,” she corrects herself, knowing that there are times he still can’t bring himself to talk about, horrors he can’t quite put into words he can stand her to hear yet.

“You know I’m as open with you about what happened as I–”

“It’s not about the time you were gone,” she cuts him off.

“Then what-”

“When did you change your mind?” she asks him quietly, dipping her head slightly.

“Change my mind about what?” he frowns.

“Marrying me.”

He stalls, his grip on her hand faltering a little as he realises what she’s asking. She’s been quiet for a few days now, ever since they finally sold the house back in Ivy Town on the realisation they were never going to go back there - and if so, it’d be a great many years for now and they aren’t really up to a real estate investment.

“Oh,” he whispers.

“Yeah. You’re not that great at hiding places,” she tries to cover with a scoff of a laugh.

“Felicity-”

“I just…I saw it in the old house, in Ivy Town, and then here in the bowl, and now it’s…gone. The ring. So…at some point when we got back here, you changed your mind about marrying me.”

“Felicity, I-”

“You don’t have to try and make me feel better about it, Oliver, I just…what changed?”

Her voice is so filled with insecurity he doesn’t recognise it as her own. He has loved her for so long, so drawn to her strength in his moments of weakness, so comforted by her safe harbour during his storms. He’s never imagined that she may have seen the ring, that she’d have had any hint about him proposing.

He’s never imagined she’d have doubted herself when he hadn’t.

“ _Everything_ changed,” he breathed out, a resigned sound of self-loathing that fills him from the inside out when he understands that his reluctance has made her doubt herself. She’s been worrying about how much he loves her, and so soon after worrying that she loves him too much. “But it didn’t change my mind.”

“That doesn’t make any sense,” she says with a small frown.

He takes both her hands this time, leaning his hip against the worktop as he strokes his thumbs over her palms. His gaze is entirely focused on her hands, and he steadies himself with a breath before he speaks. “We uprooted this wonderful life we had in Ivy Town to come back here, and everything is different,” he explains with a small shake of his head. “Everything changed in an instant, I wasn’t sure of anything anymore, who I was, what I needed…but I was sure that the person I wanted to be was your husband,” he confesses quietly.

“But you haven’t asked me,” she asks, her hands squeezing around his.

“I had it all planned out,” he tells her with a small laugh, raising his head to meet her eyes once more, this time with a look over amusement. “Remember the night that Thea and Laurel showed up?”

She scowls at first, but then her lips part with a look of understanding. “Oh, Oliver…”

“Yeah.”

“That’s what you meant about celebrating after dessert…” she realises with her hands flying up to cover her mouth.

“The ring was in the souffle,” he nods. “If they’d been just a minute later…”

“Oh my God…” she half groans into her cupped hands.

“I spent two weeks planning it, the meal, the desserts…even the Hoffman’s knew about the ring–”

“The Hoffman’s knew?” she cut him off incredulously.

He has to bite back his grin, but he nods. “They made me show it to them that morning, when we had breakfast together.”

“Ring-blocked by your sister and your ex,” she scoffs. “That’s the worst kind of bad omen.”

“Not a bad omen,” he muses, reaching his hand out until it cups her elbow. “Maybe it was needed. I think we needed to come back here first, to know that we could be here and still be strong together. I needed to know that I wasn’t going to lose you when we came here.”

“Why would you lose me?” she asks.

“You thrive in this life, Felicity,” he points out. “As much as I hate you being in harms way because of it, you’re wonderful at what you do, both as a CEO and the work you do for the team.”

“I’d choose you over both of them,” she tells him instantly, one hand coming up to his chest while the other steadies her against the worktop. “I love you more than that.”

“And I love you enough not to make you choose,” he tells her.

“So you know that we work here together?” she checks.

“I do. I’m sure of that,” Oliver nods with certainty. “We could be underground in a mountain and I’d still love you.”

“But…”

“I haven’t asked yet,” he finishes for her. “That doesn’t mean I’ve changed my mind.”

“Okay,” she says, sighing with a firm nod.

“I just want to make it special,” he explains.

She almost rolls her eyes at him. Almost. “Oliver, I don’t need fireworks and candlelight, you know. I’m not that kind of girl.”

“I know, but regardless, if it goes the way I hope it will, it’ll be the only time I ever propose, and the only time you get proposed to. First and lasts in one go. It’s not that I….I want to marry you, Felicity.” He explains, smiling down at her because how can he not? He’s wanted to marry her for far longer than he’ll admit to. “I love you with everything that I have, and I want to spend the rest of my life with you, and…and are you crying?”

“No,” she chokes out, wiping under her eyes.

“Felicity-”

“God, Oliver, if that’s how you tell a girl you’re not proposing, this proposal’s going to kill me,” she laughs through her watery expression.

“What do you think I’ve been trying to figure out all this time?” he teases her.

Felicity arches an eyebrow at him. “Is that what you’ve been writing in your dream journal?”

“It’s not a dream journal, it’s a processing technique, and…”

“It is, isn’t it?” She realises, taking that last step towards him. “You’ve been writing your speech in it.”

When he distracts her with a kiss, he finds her pulling back from him, stepping out of his embrace until he’s reaching for her. “Where are you going?” he asks as she keeps moving towards the stairs, still facing him.

“I’m going to read it.”

He holds up a hand to her. “Don’t you dare.”

“I’m gonna do it,” she grins, turning and bolting towards the staircase.

“Oh no, you don’t,” he decides, chasing after her.

He catches her just before the first step, throwing her over his shoulder while she squeals with laughter. The heaviness of their former conversation is forgotten as she reacts by slamming her hand down against his left buttock.

“Oliver! Put me down!”


	78. Mad At You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anonymous said: Felicity sleeping on the couch after a fight with bae, and bae coming down seeing her tear stained cheeks while she’s sleeping and carrying her to bed with him. The baes end up snuggling and making up. ^_^

“Felicity, wake up.”

She shifts awake slowly, that still-sleeping confusion leaving her wondering why she’s looking at the back cushions of the couch. The fabric is so close to her face she frowns until she feels the hand gently shaking at her shoulder, and then she shifts onto her other side, seeing Oliver crouched before her.

“What are you doing down here?” he asks her.

“Sleeping on the couch,” she says, her tired voice as stroppy as she intends it to be. “Act of defiance. I’m still mad at you.”

“I know,” he nods, as if the fact doesn’t bother him. “But you’re going to ruin your neck sleeping on this couch, trust me, so can you be mad at me in our bed?”

She huffs at his suggestion, burying her face into the decorative pillow she’s been using to nestle her head on, ignoring the scratch of the patterned beadwork against her cheeks. He’s right, because this couch, as comfortable as it is for sitting, is terrible for sleeping on. They’ve fallen asleep here watching a movie before and it’s left them with unbearable cricks in their necks.

“If I have to be,” she sighs heavily.

She goes to sit up but he’s already there, his arms looped around her with one under her back and one beneath her legs. When he’s upright, her arms link around his neck instinctively.

“Still mad at you,” she insists, as her tired head falls on his shoulder.

“I know,” he whispers, his lips touching to her forehead before he carries her up the stairs.

“Still mad at you,” she repeats when he sits her on the edge of the bed and disappears for a moment, coming back with a damp but warm washcloth to wipe the residue of tear stains and mascara from her cheeks.

“I know,” he nods when he taps his hands lightly against her knees before getting up and going back to the bathroom.

“Still mad at you,” she says when his hand sneaks across the mattress and entwines with hers, gripping it tightly because the idea of sleeping without touching her is unthinkable.

“I know,” he murmurs, inching closer but not quite as close as he needs to be to draw her into his arms as he usually would.

-

“Not really mad at you,” she realises aloud an hour later, when she can’t fall asleep without his arm around her, so she shuffles closer and pulls his arm over her until he’s turning on his side again and pulling her back against his chest, safe into the embrace only he can offer her.

She hears him huff his smile against the back of her neck before his lips touch the same spot, and she hums her contentment because now she is warm, and comfortable. His nose runs against the curve of her neck, and he whispers back to her; “I know.”


	79. I'll Follow You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ladyplantagenet said: Felicity loves to dance, like swing and lindy hop and salsa and she used to do it with Roy but Oliver has two left feet ad no rhythm and on their road trip of love he takes her to dance clubs to watch her tear up the dance floor and have fun.
> 
> Anonymous said: I need something where Felicity ran out of clean underwear or something. .i dont know, but it reaults in her wearing olivers boxers. Yaaassssss
> 
> sickandtwisteddoc said: I’ll keep it simple : last dance + fade away + Ghost!Oliver

He follows her steps, and hopes for the best.

It’s all he can do. He doesn’t want to be at this gala, and he certainly doesn’t want to be fighting with her about Barry, but she does cave and offer him a dance and her pink dress is perfectly matching to her lips. She’s beautiful, smiling from how it feels to twirl around the dancefloor and yes he’s bad at it, but that’s just making her smile even despite her minute anger at him.

But he follows her steps, hoping for the best.

–

“Is she with you?”

She dances while he’s in the queue to pay for gas just on the outskirts of Central City. It starts with a small nod of her head to whatever new pop hit is blaring out from the stereo in the corner while she’s flipping through the magazines near the door and by the time he’s moved up three places it’s a full on shoulder shake that has her muttering along with the words.

“Yes,” he shakes his head at the attendant, as if that might dampen his grin. “Yes, she is.”

–

“No chance in hell,” he tells her in New Orleans, when she’s trying to drag him into the street to join in the party that seems to be spilling out of all nearby establishments.

“I’ll dance on my own then,” she tells him smugly, as if that may entice him further.

It doesn’t, but he loves the look on her face as she jumps and twirls around to the music.

–

She dances in the half-empty bedroom of their new house. They’ve shipped their stuff in from Starling City but half is being delivered later that day and for now, she’s very much without the remains of her precious wardrobe.

So when he comes out of the shower, he sees her wildly dancing around in a pair of his boxers and yesterdays’ t-shirt. He’s pretty sure the Flashdance soundtrack is in the background, but either way, she certainly looks like the Maniac of the song title.

She merely points at him when she sees him. “You just bought a house with me,” she reminds him. “There’s no escaping this now.”

–

She dances in the kitchen at three o’clock in the morning while she waits for the baby’s bottle to finish in the warmer. She’s exhausted, they both are, and he’s left them long enough for him to come looking for them and found them swaying gently together. His daughter is curled in her arms, their little bundle of joy who wakes up at three o’clock without fail, and while there’s no music Felicity is humming something he doesn’t recognise. Regardless, it fades the infant’s cries to mere whimpers in her chest and he locks eyes with his little girl over her mother’s shoulders.

–

She dances with him on their wedding day.

There’s nothing more to say, but while he hates dancing, he loves dancing with her.

–

She dances with their daughters as they practice for their upcoming recital. They both do ballet together, for as much as their youngest can keep up. She’s not got the best confidence, so Felicity deliberately missteps to allow their littlest girl to correct her steps, to remind her that she does know the routine and she’ll do just as well as her sister.

Her fingers swirl in time to the music at the recital the following week, and the look on her face is as elated as if she danced on the stage herself.

–

She dances with their son on his wedding day. It’s bittersweet, touching, but oh so beautiful. Her little boy was always a mama’s boy, and he knows it’s as hard for her to let go of him as it was for him to walk his daughters down the aisle, but the mother-son dance is almost as beautiful to witness as the one he’s only witnessed from afar in his wedding video.

–

She dances and he watches.

And so is their life.

–

She dances on their anniversary, humming the tune they danced to on their wedding day. This time she’s in their bedroom, her steps lazier from age and the arthritis she has settling in her knees. It pains her to dance, but it still brings her joy, she clutches their wedding rings together in her hand as she does today.

He watches her, but today she can’t see him.

This time, he matches her steps as best he can. Even beyond death, he cannot keep up with her, cannot match her perfection even though she always made him believe that she could.

So he does what he always has done.

He follows her steps, and hopes for the best.


	80. Tis The Season

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> oliverjonasmoaks said: “i did that annoying thing where i put loads of smaller boxes inside one big box and you’re getting really mad but you don’t know that the ring is in the smallest box and i can’t wait to see your face”? it’s the 1st time I do this I hope it’s ok

“Oliver freaking Queen, I know you were all for ‘lets do Hannukah and Christmas’ but if this is how you do Christmas, we are not celebrating it again for at least fifteen years.”

He smiles, because he would spend every Christmas morning like this with her, fifteen years and beyond. Because Felicity Smoak, frustrated, breathless, with red cheeks and messy hair, is one of his favourite sides of her. The fact that she’s cross-legged on the living room floor in pyjamas makes it even more perfect, because she’s gorgeous and she’s comfortable and–

–well, as comfortable as she can be for a woman who’s just unwrapped a nesting-dolls system of christmas gifts.

“I mean, how many boxes are there?”

“You’ll know when you get to the last one,” he tells her, watching her from a mirrored position a few inches away from her.

“This is ridiculous, and your wrapping is terrible and—oh.”

She’s reached the last one, and it’s not gift-wrapped, it’s velvet-covered and resting in the palm of her hand. She swallows thickly and stares at it.

“Oliver…this isn’t the necklace I asked for, is it?” she checks.

“No,” he smiles. “Open it.”

She does, with a small click that’s drowned out by her gasp when she sees the reflective glint that shines off the ring inside it. “Oh my god.”

The hand that raises to her lips is pulled away by his, and he grasps it with meaning as her eyes to move. “Felicity Meghan Smoak… I love you with everything I have, and I don’t want to spend another second of my life without you.”

“Oh, this is happening,” she gasps out.

“Will you marry me?” he asks her through a nervous smile.

And yes, he’s nervous.

He’s nervous she’s everything. Because she could take everything from him with one word.

“Yes.”

Or she could give him even more.


	81. Fight to Live

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> melsanfo said: Prompt: Since its very possible that Felicity will be badly hurt on 4x09 can you make a fic where she’s at deaths door and it’s Moira who keeps her film crossing over? Maybe even gives her approval on Olicity and tells Felicity to fight? Thanks!

There’s a touch of a hand against her hair that makes her feel like she’s a kid again. It’s warm, it’s soothing, the hands are far too soft to be a man’s, and her first thought is that this is the touch of her mother. She leans into it as the fog clears, moves closer into the touch that is assuring yet unfamiliar, because this hand has the touch of metal against it, too many rings that is certainly not her mother’s touch.

It’s not her mother. So who’s touching her?

She blinks her eyes open, and as she does there’s a rush of sound, and the sight of Oliver’s hunched form buried into the side of her bed. This is a hospital room, she’s in the hospital, and the flood of memory comes to her - the engagement, the limo, the bullets, oh, the bullets, and the pain.

She tries to move, and manages to lift her hand, but when she touches Oliver, he doesn’t react. It’s like he doesn’t even feel her and she sucks in a breath. There’s no pain when she moves, but there’s panic - because he can’t feel her, and she can’t rouse his attention, and then she feels the touch against her hair again and she turns straight to the gaze of Moira Queen.

“You’re dead,” she blurts.

Moira raises an eyebrow back at her, shaking her head as she pulls her hand back from Felicity and perches on the side of the bed instead. “Don’t disappoint me, Miss. Smoak, I was told you were intelligent.”

Felicity’s experiences with Moira Queen have never been memorable in a positive way, so if this is her drug-induced hallucination she really needs to have a talk with Oliver about what drugs these doctors have given her because this is clearly not an effective one for her sanity to remain intact.

“I’m not a hallucination,” Moira tells her when she’s been silent for too long. “I’m here to stop you crossing over.”

“Crossing over where?” she asks.

She’s met with silence, and she draws in another breath..

“Am I dying?”

“You’re fighting, for the moment,” Moira tells her quietly, her gaze draws over to Oliver and Felicity follows the movement.

She looks closer at Oliver this time, his hand wrapped around hers tightly even in his sleep, even though she can’t feel it. The skin around his eyes is taut and grey in a way she hasn’t seen in around seven months, there are lines she hasn’t noticed, as if he’s sat still long enough that age has caught up with him.

As nothing he’s endure has been easier than this. As if this is his breaking point.

“How bad is it?” Felicity asks, without taking her eyes off the man at her side.

“I’m no doctor, but from what I understand you took three bullets during the shooting. One ruptured your lung, one in your thigh and one in your stomach that caused some severe internal bleeding. You were in surgery for a long time, and they kept you in a medically induced coma for two days so you could heal. Now they’re waiting for you to wake up.”

“And how long have they been waiting?” she asks.

“Another three days,” Moira tells her, and Felicity swallows thickly. “When things get to a certain point, relatives are brought in to ensure that people aren’t alone when the time comes.”

Felicity looks up sharply. “But I’m fighting, you said-”

“Felicity, your grandparents wanted to be here for this,” Moira says softly, and Felicity feet something in her chest, something that sparks the monitors enough that Oliver starts to stir at the sound. “They wanted to be here to make sure you weren’t alone, that someone familiar was with you, but I asked to take their place.”

“Why?” she asks.

“Because I think you still have fight left in you,” she says. “I don’t believe now is your time, and my beautiful boy will not survive losing you.”

Something’s definitely happening, but Oliver moves. He doesn’t recognise that her eyes are open, and she truly realises that what’s happening right now is all in her head. She’s unconscious. He leans over her, his hands on her face - things she can’t feel - and he’s talking to her. She can’t hear his voice, either.

“He needs you to wake up,” Moira tells her. “You won’t…it’s hard for you to understand when you don’t have a son of your own, but I need to make sure that my son is happy. I need for him to be happy, especially when he has so few things in his life that bring him joy. If he loses you, he won’t smile any more. Do you know how much happiness it has brought me these last few months, to be able to watch over my son and see him happy?”

Felicity just swallows, her gaze fixed on the way that Oliver’s eyes filled with tears above her. “I don’t want to go,” Felicity whispers. “I want to fight. I want to stay.”

“Then you need to wake up,” Moira tells her. “Because the life you have coming is worth living for.”

She looks away, towards this elder woman who once terrified her. “He wants to marry me. He asked me.”

“I know, with my ring,” she acknowledges, placing her hand over the one that Oliver held previously, touching the ring in question. “It suits you.”

“I didn’t know it was yours,” she murmurs.

“He’d never have given it to anyone else,” she nods. “I don’t want to spoil your life for you, but if you do this, if you fight, if you wake up, you will have troubles. There will be hard times, but you will survive them together. The one thing I can tell you is that you will be loved for every day of your long life together, and when my son loves, he loves with his entire being.”

“I want to wake up,” Felicity decides.

Moira stands up, shaking her head a little. “Well, there’s no good in talking about it, is there? If you want to do it, then do it.”

“How?” she asks.

The figure at her bedside starts to fade as she turns her attention to her son, placing her hand on the back of his messed hair. “He’s calling for you, Felicity. Listen to him.”

–

“Felicity? Felicity, can you hear me?”

Pain. So much pain. It hurts to breathe, but she needs more air, and it makes her miss the sweet oblivion of the darkness when she was sleeping.

“Felicity, I’m right here, hon. I’m right here. Please come back to me.”

This time, when her eyes open, she can really see him. She can hear him. She can feel him.

And he smiles through his tears.

“Thank god, my beautiful girl.”


	82. What Should Have Been

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anonymous said:
> 
> You should totally write a fic about Oliver and felicity actually make it back to the loft and what happens next instead of her getting shot

When they arrive home, Felicity has a skip in her step when she walks ahead of him into the loft. He holds back in the doorway to admire it, lost in a memory of the time she promised to make him the best CEO material he could be, the way she looked back at him with her dress swinging around her knees, and he remembers the burn in his cheeks from the force of his smile. He feels that burn now, akin to the flame that’s lit in his chest, one that burns only for her.

She turns to find him still with his back to the door, slipping off her tan jacket and leaving it over the back of the couch. For once, his fingers don’t itch to hang it up on the rack behind the door. He doesn’t look at the shoes she kicks off where she stands, because all he notices when her height sinks four inches is that her smile doesn’t fade.

He doesn’t think he’s seen this smile on her before, yet at the same time he thinks he’s seen it this whole time.

This is the smile of a woman who is genuinely happy. She didn’t accept his ring because she felt it was an obligation or the right thing to do, she accepted because she wants to. She wants to marry him. She wants to be his wife. This woman, this intelligent, remarkable, amazing, beautiful, perfect woman wants to be his wife.

“What’s that smile for?” she teases, as he approaches her slowly, his hands coming out to grasp her elbows when she raises her hands to start loosening his tie for him.

He watched his parents like this once before, small whispers with his mother loosening his father’s tie after a benefit party, and it just fills him a sense of something he can only liken to some of the emoji faces that his future mother-in-law sends him.

“Mrs. Felicity Queen,” he tests out the name slowly, each syllable brightening the smile across his face.

That smile - his favourite smile on her, no question about it - widens in response. He remembers that giggle as he dropped to one knee only…wow, twenty minutes ago? and he hears a hint of it again. “Mr. Oliver Smoak,” she retorts.

“I love it,” he states through his grin. “I’m changing it legally tomorrow.”

This time, her response is a full-belly laugh that makes his stomach flutter. She wants to marry him. She wants to be his wife. And he so wants to be her husband.

There was a time that domesticity scared him - a time that he not only ran from it but he fought it kicking and screaming. He wonders if he was just unprepared for the realities of real love, or whether part of him was telling him to wait because his soulmate hadn’t arrived yet.

But she’s here now, holding his tie around his neck as she laughs.

“At the risk of sounding corny, I don’t think I’ve ever been this happy,” he breathes out, the disbelief evident in his tone because Oliver has known a lot of joy since she came into his life, and if this is how he feels when she mentions ‘yes’, how is he going to feel when she says ‘I do’? He’ll be one of those grooms that cries, won’t he? Oh yes. Even the idea makes his chest tighten in anticipation. He’ll be a cryer. He’ll cry when he sees her on their wedding day, cry when he kisses his bride, cry when they start a family, cry when he holds his newborn baby, cry when–

Whoa, slow down there.

“We’re actually doing this,” Felicity laughs. Because this whole thing is laughable, really, isn’t it?

He launches his lips onto hers, pulling her in for that kiss he couldn’t give her in front of the camera crews. They’re alone now, and he can slide his tongue against hers, bite at her lips, and god, he can laugh because he’s never, ever felt this level of happiness before. They grin so much they can’t quite manage to kiss effectively, which is very new to them, but they end up with their noses pressed together, her hands keeping him pulled down to her by his tie alone and his wind around her waist.

“You’re going to be my _wife_ ,” he whispers in amazement.

“I am,” she nods, touching her lips to his neck, his jaw, his shoulder, getting steadily lower because her toes are cramping from leaning up to him.

“I’m going to marry you,” he declares as he bends, lifting her up into his arms. If he spins her once before setting off to the stairs, he loses the acknowledgement of his actions by the squeal that sneaks into her laugh.

“I told you earlier that you could,” she reminds him, and he actually throws his head back. When he brings his eyes back to hers as they enter the bedroom, she lets out a choked burst of joy. “We’re getting married, Oliver. _Married_. As in actually married, like husband and wife, Mr. and Mrs, married.”

“Yes, we are,” he nods, as he kicks the bedroom door closed and he’s about to throw her down on the bed when they hear the door slam again and very definitive high pitched scream.

“MY BABY’S GETTING MARRIED!”

Oliver freezes with Felicity in his arms, dropping his voice to a whisper. “Don’t make any sudden movements. If we stay really, really still, she’ll think we’re asleep and leave us alone.”

“Yes, it’s entirely plausible that we came home immediately after getting engaged to go to sleep,” she pointed out, rolling her eyes as she pat her hand against his chest. “Let’s get this over with…”


	83. Think of Something Nice

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> tvdonlyforkatgraham said: Imagine the first night Oliver has to get through a thunderstorm alone while Felicity is in hospital.

His shoulders jerked as the first rumble echoed through the room. The lights flicker for a moment and his head bolts upright, looking towards the medical monitors that are keeping his girlfri--- fiancee stable. Luckily, none seem to be affected by the momentary power scare, but while he knows there are highly capable backup generators, it doesn’t still the rising thud that’s ascending in his chest.

His hand tightens around Felicity’s as the next flash of lightning lights the darkened room. They always dim the lights at night, at his request - because she can wake up any day now and she absolutely hates waking up to the light glaring into her eyes, as he found out the hard way once - and it’s left the eeriness creeping in around him.

In the shadows, his demons come from him.

_Clap!_

His hands are shaking. He wants to believe it’s that he hasn’t eaten today. Getting back to normal eating habits took most of the summer, learning to cook was a big part of that, as was noticing the unhealthy snack foods Felicity seemed to survive on, and now that he has no reason to make her lunch, half-bribe her into breakfast or seduce her with dinner, he doesn’t remember to get any food. Hospital food is bad anyway. Between the hunger and the mass of caffeine, it’s no wonder his hands are shaking.

_Clap!_

His chest is tightening. The shirt that Diggle brought him that morning feels tighter around his neck, even though the henley is far from his throat. He tries to swallow as the shudder starts at the top of his back, curving down his spine, but it just chokes him. His next breath is a gasp, and when it hurts him to breathe in, he knows what’s happening to him.

_Clap!_

He hasn’t had a panic attack since the came back to Star City, and honestly, that surprises him. He and Felicity put a lot of work into controlling his attacks and helping him through them, and the idea of her being unconscious through one of them already makes it feel out of control--

_Clap!_

\--because he just wants to feel her hands on his face and hear her voice--

_Clap!_

\--and the storms right above him, tearing through him, and he wants to go back to that safe place between her chest and her throat, the one that fits his head perfectly because--

_Clap!_

\--nothing can hurt him when he’s there, and how could it? he’s with her, in the arms of the woman he loves and he isn’t there now.

_Clap!_

Her arms are right in front of him, and rather than bury himself into her, he pushes away. The chair falls beneath him, and he’s pacing the room with his head in his hands when the door bursts open and Donna walks in.

_Clap!_

He flinches away from her the moment she gets near him, and she places down the two coffees that she’s brought in with her. He’s pushed towards the couch in the hospital room and she presses his shoulder until he collapses down onto the hard cushions.

_Clap!_

“Look at me, Oliver.”

He manages to, he’s not sure how.

“Felicity helps you with this, doesn’t she?”

Her voice is so soft, so warm in this cold, that he has to bite his lip before he can nod.

_Clap!_

“Okay, well I’m sure I’m not as good as she is, but I did manage to get Felicity to sleep when she missed her father, so how do you feel about giving that a try?”

She’s a good Mom. He knows that. He wishes his mother had been as warm as she was. It’s why he loves Donna so much, why he works so hard to keep her a part of this new family he wants with Felicity, but right now he wants her to mother him. He needs it. Because in moments like this he can’t remember what a mother’s love feels like.

_Clap!_

His head dips down, but it’s met with the sensation of fingernails carding through his hair. It’s not like when Felicity does it; the touch is more motherly, just like he craves right now. It’s sweet, it’s loving, it’s warm, and something chokes past his lips that makes her shush him.

_Clap!_

When he flinches, one hand leaves his hand comes up to the side of his face, stroking his cheek.

“Just close your eyes, and think of something nice,” she whispers.

_Clap!_

Close your eyes, and think of something nice.

He thinks of Felicity opening her eyes, thinks of holding her in his arms again, thinks of the ring on her finger being joined by their matching ones. He thinks of being Mr. Felicity Smoak and spending the rest of his long life at her side, with her smile at his side every morning.

_Clap!_

He thinks of mousy-haired children with blue eyes and brilliant smiles. He thinks of tiresome nights spent with coliccy babies instead of criminals. He thinks of how warm their bed is on a Sunday morning when they don’t have to get up. He thinks of her smile. Her perfume. Her glasses. Her industrial piercing.

_Clap!_

Close your eyes, and think of something nice.

He thinks of her, and of everything that makes her unique, makes her his.

And breathing becomes a little easier

“There, your hands aren’t shaking, that’s better,” Donna tells him.

His eyes flicker open and he finds himself leaning into her touch.

“Thank you,” he whispers.

“Don’t be silly,” she brushes it off, and she pushes herself up from the floor so she’s on her feet again, patting his cheek as she kisses the top of his head. “We’re family now, Oliver. Family means that when one person tags out, someone else will step up to help take care of the others.”

He swallows as thunder rumbles in the distance. He hasn’t had that in a long time.

Donna hands him the cup of coffee she brought in, encouraging him to clasp his cold hands around it. “You might be making a Queen out of my baby girl, but I think we need to make a Smoak out of you first.”


	84. Confession

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anonymous said: How bout a prompt? Felicity’s in the hospital after whatever might happen in 4x09. Oliver decides no more secrets period. When she wakes up he tells her he has a son. And she’s like “…I’m pregnant?” Or better…“They told you i was pregnant?”

“I can’t keep this from you anymore.”

She’s been awake for an hour when the words fall from his lips - for the first time in three days, he adds to himself. The last two weeks have been a combination of thirty-minute periods that she wakes between bouts of pain medication, sometimes in pain, sometimes confused, sometimes pleading for him, sometimes content to lie still. The wounds on the right hand side of her body are starting to heal now, he knows that from the way her winces are not quite as deep when she moves and how her sleep is more peaceful than medicated.

But today she’s been awake for a whole hour. She’s sitting up, she’s eaten solid food - well, they managed to talk her into some oatmeal which she usually hates but at least its food and not anything through a drip - and she’s not just squeezing his hand back this time, but they seem to have engaged in some kind of silent thumb chase similar to the way their hands teased each other during their summer road trips.

When his confession escapes him, she looks at him lazily, a small frown on her face. She’s about to question him when he says the words, the words that have been weighing him down for weeks now.

“I have a son.”

She’s silent, her frown not quite deepening, but certainly shifting. He expected this, this silence, because it’s her most terrifying reaction. Felicity is sound. Felicity is color. Felicity is never silent unless her tones are chased away and her color is dulled. He expected this. He expected to have hurt her. It doesn’t make his guilt choke him any less.

“How?” she asks, one word.

“It’s compl-”

“I thought it’d be too early to tell,” she whispers, swallowing thickly as her hand clutches to his a little tighter.

She’s not frowning any more, but is overcome with emotion instead. But he’s frowning. Because this isn’t a look of betrayal, this is…disappointment? “Felicity?”

“We’ve only been here for two weeks, so that must make me ten weeks, I…I didn’t think we could find out this soon, I…” she broke off, shaking her head as she flickers her gaze downwards, to the door, then back to him. “Did they tell you when I was asleep?”

His jaw is open a little, he knows he probably looks ridiculous, but right now he can’t function enough to understand why he’s gaping for words. He’s trying to confess his own secrets, but it’s starting to sound a lot like–

“Oliver, when did they tell you that I was pregnant?”

His next inhale is shaking, and he’s up on the side of the bed, perched right opposite her with his lips on hers before he can even speak. “They didn’t,” he chokes out, as her wave of emotion hits him as well, and for the first time in two weeks she finds the strength to embrace him back.

“What did you mean about having a son?” she asks curiously.

“Can I tell you later?” he asks her, pulling back to stroke his hand through her mussed hair. “I promise I will, no more secrets, but I…I want this moment first,” he tells her.

She bites her lip and nods, bringing their joined hands down to her stomach and holds them there. It brings tears to his eyes, the knowledge that he can do this from the beginning this time, that he can not only participate in a family but be part of its growth, that he can hold a newborn child and call it his own and while he doesn’t deserve it - he wants it so badly.

“Later,” she agrees quietly.

“So, we’re having a baby?” he asks, a nervous excitement over his face.

She nods, taking in a steadying breath. “Yeah, I…I must be about ten weeks now, as long as everything’s okay after the surgeries…”

She stops taking after that, taking her lower lip between her teeth and he cups her cheek. “Hey, don’t worry. Why don’t I go and get the doctor and we can get everything checked,” he suggests.

He’s about to stand up when she pulls his hand back. “You have a son,” she repeats his words from earlier. “Is that what Central City was about?”

He nods at her, his thumb stroking the inside of her palm. “I was going to tell you, but Samantha made me swear-”

“If you have a son, it’s okay,” she tells him. “I’m not saying we don’t have to talk about it still, especially you keeping it from me, but having a kid you didn’t know about isn’t going to be the problem of anything,” she assures him. “It’s just a bigger family, right?”

She’s far more accepting than he deserves, so he comes back for one more kiss, and savors this one.

“Let’s get ready to meet this one,” he suggests, his hand skating over her flat stomach. “Then we’ll work out meeting the other one.”


	85. Lyrical

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> thearrowandhisqueen said: So I don’t know if you are taking prompts but I’ve just had this plot bunny of Olicity on their road trip and Felicity drives a couple times and everytime she just sings along (loudly) with the radio and Oliver just stares and you go from there.

She sings with the car stereo, loudly and without a care. Why should she care? They’ve got the top down and they’re moving in a slow crawl so they can still hear the music. He can’t make out every word of it, but she clearly knows it by heart. This is a burst of happiness that he’s never seen from her, and if this is what he’s allowed to share in when he opens himself up to being happy, then he wants it. He wants all of it. The sun is setting, her hand is loosely wrapped around his, and they are both ecstatically happy, so she sings.

–

She sings under her breath. She’s got her headphones in and the plane’s been in the air for about two hours. They won’t be landing for a while, and she’s already gotten bored of the book she purchased last minute at the airport. He bites his lip, and wants to tell her that the woman across the aisle from them keeps staring because the lyrics of the song are sexual to say the least, but Felicity’s got her eye mask covering her face and he tabs this one down as one of the treasured vacation memories they’ll recount with friends in the future.

–

She sings quietly to herself in the hotel room. She’s still half asleep and it’s punctuated with yawns, but they’ve got a system where they take turns with the coffee when they’re not at home - it’s always his turn at home - so now they’re in Central City they revisit the system without needing to mention that it’s her turn. So he lies in bed and watches her across the room, drags his eyes over the sight of his fiance wearing his shirt and boxers as she brings him coffee in bed, still mumbling to the song he thinks was on the car radio on the way into town yesterday.

–

She sings as she kisses along his chest on their wedding night. It’s not a random song this time, it’s the one they shared their first dance to only a few hours ago. This time they’re in the honeymoon suite of a hotel, and after their first round (there will be many tonight, he’s sure of it) she’s sprawled across his chest, enjoying the afterglow. If he concentrates on anything out of their immediate bubble of space, he can see the white of her wedding gown over her shoulder where it hangs up against the mirror. It’s just another reminder that they actually got married today, and he pulls her up for another kiss, swallowing down the lyrics she gives to him.

–

She sings to baby Sara, and he’s never wanted to be a father more. He’s been thinking about it a lot lately, if he’s honest. They’ve been married for a few months, and he’s starting to think about what comes next. It hits him hardest when they’re babysitting Sara for a few days and on the second night it’s stopped being a fun trip to Uncle Oliver and Aunty Lissy’s and the little girl is missing her parents so she cries. She cries, and Felicity sings. He waits in the hall outside the room she’s sleeping in and listens to his wife’s singing soothe a crying child to sleep, because he knows if he goes into the room, he’ll say things he’s not sure she’s ready for yet.

–

She sings to the karaoke machine in Central City. She tries to tell him it’s tradition, even gets Barry and Caitlin to back her up, but he’s certainly not joining in. That doesn’t mean he’s not content to stand at the bar and order another round of drinks for them as she gets on stage with their friends and sing along to a song he’s very certain he’s heard before. Only this time she’s inebriated, the words are slurred and they stop every few minutes to control their laughter.

–

She sings the song that’s been driving him mad all day. But he loves her. He swears he does.

–

She sings to their baby in the middle of the night. This is the sight he’s wanted to see, and he doesn’t wait in the hall when she does. He hears it first over the baby monitor and follows it to the nursery. It’s the first night the baby hasn’t slept in their room - they have a son now, a beautiful boy - and he finds her rocking gently by the window in her nightgown, her precious boy bundled in her arms like he fits perfectly. The baby watches her with the same fascination that Oliver does until his tiny eyes close and he nuzzles against her chest. Oliver loves Felicity with everything he has. It’ll never touch on how much their son loves her.

–

She sings along to children’s television as if it’s driven her insane. She doesn’t want to, but it’s all their son wants to watch and he knows all the words, which means that Felicity knows all the words to. She knows the TV schedule by heart, and has started lying that certain characters she can’t even bear to speak the name of have gone on vacation and aren’t on TV today. She’d rather listen to their boy’s tantrum than that counting song one more time. But even if she sings the lyrics like they’re scratched into her brain and she requires a lobotomy, this is still happiness, because their son smiles when she sings it, and Oliver smiles when his son does.

It’s still happiness. He still wants every part of it. Even if the counting song is really annoying.


	86. Aftershocks

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anonymous said:
> 
> Not sure if you’re taking prompts currently? But if you are could you please do one of Felicity and Oliver at an event and Felicity having an allergic reaction to something with nuts in it?

Her entire body aches when she shuffles into the kitchen the next morning, and every part of her fights the urge to just go back to bed. Oliver’s cooking breakfast, but it doesn’t smell all that appetizing when she can’t even shake the exhaustion. She sinks into the couch before she even makes it to the kitchen area, fully aware of his cautious eyes on her as she pulls a pillow across her lap and sinks into the corner sofa they’ve treated themselves to since getting more permanently settled in Star City.

Last night was more eventful than they’d planned it to be. A last minute change of caters at his latest mayoral gala meant that the very strict ‘no traces of nuts’ rule hadn’t been adhered to, and it head lead to Oliver leaving his campaign far behind him for the night and the two of them adding a touch of luxury to the emergency room in their finery.

This was the second reaction she’s had in the time she’s been with Oliver. The first came from a Chinese restaurant that turned out not to be as trustworthy as they’d asked it to be when they were travelling, and she’s glad to be spending the aftermath of the experience in the comfort of her own home and not a motel room this time.

He approaches her with a coffee made in her favourite mug, and she takes it into her hands with a graciously mumbled thanks before her head snuggles back into the mass of cushions that make up the corner unit. He stretches her legs over his, gently massaging the knees that have been cramping up all night, and she sighs contently.

“Still tired?” he asks softly.

She nods, shifting lazily closer so she’s looking at him without having to crane her neck. “I know epinephrine is good, but it sucks the day after.”

One hand comes up to comb back the strands of hair that have fallen around her face. “At least you have nowhere to be today,” he reminds her.

“You do,” she frowns.

He shakes his head, leaning back so his position almost mimics hers. “Felicity, the news is covered with footage of us getting into the back of an ambulance last night. We’re both forgiven a few days off.”

She winces a little. “What did you say to the press?” she asks.

“I said you were recovering and resting, and that we appreciate privacy from the media.”

She gives him a tired smile, patting his cheek. “Alex has trained you well.”

“I’m sure he’s very proud,” he agrees, leaning over to gently brush his lips over hers. “So I’ve got eggs almost ready, coffee in the pot and ice cream in the freezer. I figured we’d have a lazy Netflix day.”

“I thought I smelt sausages?” she asked.

“Those are for me,” he tells her. “I figured you wouldn’t want anything too heavy yet.”

“This is why I love you,” she mumbles, lifting her legs up so he can slide closer to her. Now it’s easy for her to lay her head on his shoulder and be almost completely in his embrace. His arm falls around her back, tracing comforting patterns across her aching spine until she’s fully relaxed against him.

“So, what’s it going to be?” he asks her, as he reaches for the remote. “Jessica Jones, or Suits?”


	87. Little Shit

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anonymous said: “Imagine that Person A is heavily pregnant and is laying on the couch. Person B comes and gives A a smooch on their belly, but at the exact spot and time where they kiss, the baby gives a huge kick. B is a little thrown off but they laugh and say, “That little shit just kicked me in the mouth!”” Please write it??

“Baby’s being a little shit.”

Oliver laughs as he rounds the couch, two hot chocolates in his hands as he watches his very pregnant wife struggle to get comfortable. With only two weeks until her due date, comfort is a thing of the past, and today she’s sprawled out on the couch with one leg tossed up over the back of it and the other curled beneath her. He can’t imagine how that’s comfortable, but passes her the hot chocolate which she curls one hand around the other around the underside of her swollen stomach.

“Stop calling our son a little shit,” he tells her playfully, moving her leg so he can sit down and then drawing it back across his lap.

“He’s earning the name,” she grumbles, pressing her stomach on one side as she fights to get comfortable again.

“Let me have a word,” he says, batting her hand lightly out of the way and stooping his head so he can lean close to her stomach.

“No, you just make him more excited,” she complains. “I want him to calm down so I can go ten minutes without peeing.”

“I’m his father, he has to learn to start listening to me,” he points out, kissing her outtie belly button.

“Can you do that when he’s not elbowing my bladder?” she huffed.

He shot her a glance, then leaned his forehead against her stomach so she couldn’t see his face. “Alright, kid. We’ve talked about this.”

“And he didn’t listen,” Felicity grumbled.

He lifted his gaze to her again. “Excuse me, my son and I are talking.”

She rolled her eyes and resumed sipping her hot chocolate.

“Okay, little man. We’ve talked about this before, why aren’t you listening to me?” he mumbles against the stretch marks on the base of her stomach. “You need to give your mom a break, otherwise she’s never going to let me near her again.”

“I think labor will make that choice for me,” she mutters, and he glares at her again.

“See, you’re killing me, kid,” he says to the bump, placing his lips against it again. “Just two more weeks in there and then you can come out and stretch your legs a bit. Then we can spoil you rotten. How does that sound?”

He recoils so quickly he almost spills the hot chocolate down himself, looking at her stomach with a surprised and suspicious look. He bites his lip, chewing on it as he shakes his head, backing away and clearing his throat.

She looks at him, raising an eyebrow as she resumes stroking over her stomach. “So?”

“So?” he repeats nonchalantly, looking intently at the television.

“How’d that father-son chat go?” she asks casually.

He says nothing, shifts his weight and sighs heavily.

“Little shit kicked me in the mouth.”


	88. My Girls

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Inspired by this post http://fangirlfromthenorthcountry.tumblr.com/post/138398511638/somebody-needs-to-fic-this-because-all-i-can-see

The little girl was just starting to stir as she finished the fastenings on her tiny white dress. It fit her perfectly, despite their fears of a growth spurt (their daughter was as big a fan of eating as both her parents, apparently). She looked almost angelic as Felicity tucked her arms into the small cardigan and buttoned them up, lifting her daughter against her chest again after to settle her back to sleep. She was fussy that day and they didn’t want the ceremony to be filled with her grizzles if she’d be happier asleep.

They hadn’t planned on having their wedding so close to the baby being born, but someone had made an early unexpected appearance, and they hadn’t wanted to cancel so many plans. It hadn’t been a long drive to the coast, where they were using the Queen family beach house as a wedding location, but while her bridesmaids and family were waiting in the next room, Felicity was taking a moment with her daughter.

She felt a lingering gaze on her shoulder, and her eyes didn’t even flicker up to the balcony where the door was wide open, a breeze alerting her to the fact that she was not alone. “You’re not supposed to see me in my dress,” she said quietly.

The air behind her shifted, not realising how close he was to her until his hand moved around to cup his daughter’s head, and his lips dipped down to the curve of Felicity’s exposed neck. “You both look so beautiful,” his thick voice rumbled against her skin.

She leaned back into him for a moment, letting his gentle touch sooth their daughter to sleep before she whispered to him once more. “You need to go and get ready,” she reminded him. “You’ve got a wedding to get to.”

“I can’t wait,” she felt him smile against her before he was moving. “I’ll see you soon, wifey.”

She adjusted the baby in her arms, kissing the bow on her daughter’s headband. “Tell Daddy to stop being sneaky.”


	89. Perfect

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A little something for my personal Oliver Queen…

“Are you moving today?”

Hmm, good question.

He was planning on it, he really was. But once breakfast was done and put away, he’d leaned his head back on the couch for just a moment and sank into the cushions. A few days ago he and Felicity had a far too cliche discussion about whether or not they really needed that many cushions for the couch, given that they had little to no purpose whatsoever, but oh, he’d been so wrong. These weren’t just decorative for the room, they were decorative for the soul - not that one with the bead pattern in the corners though, that hadn’t been all that comfortable to lie on.

Maybe cushions were hypnotising. Felicity had insisted they’d screamed ‘buy me’ in the store - which had seemed foolish to him until he was pretty certain they were whispering ‘stay with us, Oliver, don’t leave us’ to him whenever he contemplated moving.

So when Felicity’s voice sounded from just beyond his right ear, his answer was almost instantaneous.

“Mmm, no.”

He heard a small huff of a chuckle before her feet padded away, but he didn’t open his eyes. Sundays that actually felt like Sundays were a rare treat. He wasn’t sure they’d had one in … well, Felicity was better at math than he was. There was always an emergency at the company, an emergency at the campaign office, an emergency at their evening ‘jobs’… if there wasn’t that, there was a week’s worth of laundry and cleaning that needed doing because they hadn’t had time for anything during the week.

But today, there was nothing. He’d gone for a run when he’d first woken up, while Felicity was still hidden beneath the thick winter duvet she wasn’t ready to part with yet, and after showering he’d changed into a clean pair of sweatpants and a t-shirt. His phone was somewhere across the room, his bare feet were crossed over the faux fur blanket Felicity had left over the back of the couch, and there was absolutely no reason for him to move whatsoever.

Later, yes. Later there would be dinner to cook (he’d be tempted for a pizza order, but after three days in a row of takeout he was itching to get back in his kitchen again). Later he’d feel restless, and his perfect spot on the couch would be invaded by a mass of blonde hair wanting to sit closer to the lamp - no matter how much they insisted they wouldn’t be one of ‘those’ couples, there really was one spot on the couch that was entirely optimal for movie watching and they would resort to all kinds of foul play to obtain it. Later there would be a need to move, but for now, there was nothing.

Nothing but a telltale flick of fur across his ankle that warned him the cat was about to make a hopeful meal out of his toes.

He cracked one eye open, spotting the skinny-legged cat sitting almost teasingly on the arm of the couch. One of Felicity’s winning trophies from a shopping trip with Thea that ‘accidentally’ went past the animal shelter that they ‘fell into’ with open arms and a “look, his eyes are so blue, Oliver, we have to give him a home, he looks just like you”. And so they’d become the owners of a dark grey ball of fuzz which loved sleeping in the pockets of his hoodies and following him around.

The cat had recently evolved into a long-legged skinny creature that had definitely found his feet - and his teeth. Anything that he could turn into a game, he could, and more often than not, the game was ‘Let’s play with Oliver’s toes because he doesn’t wear socks and Felicity’s socks are so thick it’s not worth playing with them’. So he arched an eyebrow at the cat and considered that a subtle enough warning that any game started mustn’t disturb his peace.

Which lead to the next ten minutes of jerking his foot out of the cat’s mouth until he managed to coax the playful feline into his favoured nap spot on Oliver’s chest.

“Are you cooking later?” he heard Felicity call from somewhere beyond the couch.

“I’m using the chicken, I was thinking something Mexican,” he called back without disturbing the cat or opening his eyes.

There was a small moan of longing that made him smile, and he heard the fridge door close again as Felicity’s need to snack finally deserted her. It didn’t surprise him that by now, he knew all her movements without needing to watch her. He knew the way she’d lightly shuffle her feet when walking when she had the fuzzy socks on, the way she’d rock her hips from side to side while she waited for her coffee to finish, the way she’d tap her fingers on the worktop as she tried to decide whether to give in to the cookies she was coveting against his ‘I love you, but please stop eating like a sugar-addicted toddler’ requests.

He must have dozed off, because when he felt the cat shift on his chest he was aware of her being far closer, always aware of her presence to the point that he flickered his eyes open to the sight of her curled up in an armchair, her legs thrown over the arm as she juggled her tablet and her coffee at the same time.

“So providing our phones don’t disturb us and we actually get a night in to ourselves,” he suggested, watching her head lift slowly away from the screen as she realised he was awake, “what do you want to do tonight?”

She drew in a long breath as she decided, sinking back into the opposite side of the chair and putting her tablet down in her lap as she cupped both her hands around her mug. “Well, we definitely shouldn’t plan anything big. There’s a reason we haven’t been on a date in three months. The criminal underworld of this city doesn’t care about dinner reservations.”

“Another movie night?” he suggested, allowing her the favoured night-in treat of exposing him to the many things that Netflix giveth after the island had taketh away. “We can make it romantic,” he added with a lazy shrug.

She raised her eyebrow at him. “The last time you said that, we watched ‘The Vow’ and rooted for her not to get her memory back,” she pointed out.

“Well, it was Valentine’s day…” he grinned across at her.

She laughed back at him, the sweet joyous sound that has become a soundtrack of his day. He dozes again, content that very little could improve his day more than this state of peace. He’s well fed, comfortable, his cat is lightly kneading his chest, and the woman he loves is… wait, where did she go?

He lifts his head slightly away from the pillow just as she sets down a beer on the coffee table and places the remote within his reach. He throws her a questioning glance. “Game’s on,” she explained, nodding at the television. “I’m going to take a bath.”

He followed her with his eyes. “I’ll join you at half time,” he called after her.

Okay, now it’s perfect.


	90. Unwritten

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anonymous said: Prompt: Something along the lines of piece by piece by Kelly Clarkson, maybe felicity having a long overdue conversation with her dad or something
> 
> Also inspired by a scene from The Big Bang Theory

It arrived on a Thursday morning, delivered to Donna. So, naturally she read it. It didn’t matter that she wasn’t the named ‘Miss Smoak’ on the front of the envelope, it was a sheer excitement to receive her first piece of mail addressed to the loft while she was staying there waiting for her new apartment to be ready, and before she knew it, she’d read it.

A letter from Felicity’s father.

Felicity hadn’t been ready to read it, a debate which had lead to the envelope left out on the counter when she marched off to work and insisted she didn’t need her father’s words after twenty years. But by ten o’clock she was doubting herself, wondering what he’d written to her.

By lunchtime, she’d backtracked and decided that nothing he had to say could be excused a twenty year silence.

By two o’clock, Oliver was texting her to ask if she’d read the letter. Which mean that he’d read the letter.

It lead to a small gathering of friends within the loft, all of them passing around the letter which she didn’t mind them reading, but she wasn’t sure she wanted to know. It was Donna who suggested the solution, deciding that they would each tell Felicity a version of what the letter might be, but not tell her which was correct. That way, she would hear exactly what her father had to stay to her without having it confirmed or denied.

It was a birthday card, apologising for all the ones he’s missed,” Donna told her. “He knows he doesn’t deserve a second chance, but he loves you very much and is glad that you have a happy life.”

“It was a letter saying that he was at your M.I.T. graduation,” Diggle explained, “and that he was so proud to see what you’d made for yourself.”

“It was a letter saying that he kissed you goodnight before he left,” Thea went next, “and he’s missed it every night since.”

“It was a letter saying he’d heard about your engagement,” Oliver told her, “and that he wishes he could be there and give his little girl away.”

“He wrote that you were the most beautiful little girl he’s ever seen,” Barry told her, “and that he knows one day your family will be just as beautiful, and he hopes that they’ll never have to feel how you did.”

At Barry’s words, Oliver closed the gap by standing before her, placing his lips on her cheek, close enough to hear ear that his whispered “never” wouldn’t be heard by anyone else. Closed off, it was easy for him to sneak his hand across her stomach, a subtle brush of his thumb against a bump that was so barely there they hadn’t told anyone yet.

He turned his head slightly. “Can we have a minute?” he asked the others, turning back to face Felicity when he heard them shuffling out of the room almost silently. The door closed behind them, and he instantly knelt down before her, a hand on each of her hips as he placed his lips to her belly. “I will be there for your eighth birthday,” he murmured. “I will be there when you graduate, I will be there on your wedding day”

Felicity’s breath hitched, as the tears she’d been fighting back threatened to overwhelm her. Her hands dropped down to Oliver’s shoulders, clenching around the fabric of his hoodie as she clamped down on her lower lip. “Oliver…”

“I will never leave you,” he whispered, his attention still fully on the unborn child she was growing. “You are going to have a mom and a dad every single day,” he spoke. “I will not be proud from a distance, not when I’m so proud I get to be a part of your life.

At that, she sucked in a breath only to release a sob. She collapsed down into the chair behind her and pulled him forward, kissing him. “You don’t know-”

“I do know,” he insisted, cutting her off with a brush of his thumbs over her cheeks. “I know that there is nowhere else I’d rather be than right here with my family.”

She wasn’t worried about having a baby. She’s survived far tougher things that parenthood already, so she wasn’t at all concerned about how she’d face the challenges of being a mother - she’d face them as she faced everything, with a full heart and a fierce determination. She knew that after the scan next week, they’d start telling their friends and family their good news, and she knew that having a bump in her wedding dress would be more than worth it.

But mostly, she knew that her child would always have a father who loved them. Her child would never doubt that like she did. Her child would have better.

She drew in a breath, leaning into Oliver’s hands as he wiped her cheeks. “I should thank the others.”

“Let’s just take a minute first,” he told her, his voice gentle, bringing his hands to grasp hers. “How was it, hearing those things? Did it help?”

She nodded, swallowing after she took a calming breath. “I know a lot of those things weren’t true but…knowing one of them was…”

“Felicity,” he whispered, a small smile gracing his face. “It was a big thing you did today, letting a part of him back into your life like that. I’m proud of you.”

She shrugged it off, shaking her head. “It was just a letter. A letter I didn’t even read.”

“Felicity, it’s been twenty years,” he reminded her, squeezing her hands. “It will never be just a letter.”

She leaned forward, pressing her forehead against his. “Thank you.”


	91. Shake

They’ve been married a year when Oliver wakes up in a damp bed to the sound of cries. He draws his hand from the duvet and registers the claret stain of blood against the fingertips that were resting against Felicity’s thigh as they slept. Everything stutters into a cold reality where he jumps from the bed but has to stand there for a moment and gather himself. She’s crying. Felicity, _his_ Felicity, is crying, and while he’s seen tears on her cheeks he’s never seen her cry like this before.

She cries as if her heart has been taken from her chest and is being hollowed out before her watching eyes. She cries as if every person she’s cherished has been taken out of reach and nothing can bring them back. She cries as if this will leave a scar on her soul that will never heal.

He doesn’t know what to do when she cries like this. It makes his heart stop, makes his body ache. Makes his hands shake. He doesn’t know what to do.

But there’s nothing he can do. The baby’s already gone.

–

“We don’t have to try again,” he says, when they finally talk about their loss.

The doctors encouraged them to try again when some time had passed, when her body had healed, and they haven’t been together since. They can hold each other, adore one another, but the intimacy is frightening in a way he never was. The loss of their child was something they hadn’t imagined experiencing, and something they aren’t sure they can do again.

_Let’s have a baby._

He’d suggested it first, a few months after their wedding. They’d tried and they’d tried and finally, it had worked. But now they’re scared it’ll work again. They’re scared of loving something that can so easily be taken from them.

She tried this for him, at his request. He’d let it go for her.

“I’ll understand if you can’t do this again,” he whispers when she’s silent.

“I want to,” she tells him softly. “I want us to have this.”

“I can’t see you in pain like that again,” he admits.

“It’ll be different this time.”

–

It’s not. They lose another two babies.

–

They’re tested, but the doctors can’t find anything wrong. They agree to stop trying. It’s too hard. They decide to go about their lives in a normal manner If it’s meant to be, it’ll happen. It’s more faith than they’ve ever put into something that isn’t one another. They’re offered fertility treatments, but they decline after three weeks of deliberation. They’ve seen enough of hospital rooms to subject themselves to any more.

So they stop trying.

The night they make the decision, Felicity sneaks out of an empty bed and finds Oliver drinking beside the crumpled scan photograph from their first failed pregnancy. He’s speaking, but not to her, to Tommy’s ghost (he does it sometimes on hard nights when drinking is as easy as it used to be, he’s never talked about it to her before, but she always takes him back to bed and tries not to mention it the next day). He tells Tommy to take care of their three kids, the three they’ve lost, the three they’ll never get to hold, and she sinks onto the bottom stair and cries silently across the expanse of the loft as she listens to him give instructions to his dead friend.

“I’d have loved them so much,” he says to the ghosts that surround him. “But I love her more than anything, and I can’t put her through this again.”

–

A year passes, and they never mention it again. They go back to Bali. They heal. They try to move on and put their losses behind them. They start planning another road trip for their fourth wedding anniversary but their plans are put on hold the morning they’re due to leave and Felicity still hasn’t shaken the flu.

But she’s not sick.

It’s not the flu.

“I’m pregnant,” she tells him one night. He’s come in late, blood on his chin that doesn’t belong to him, still wearing the Arrow leathers, and he’s about to tell her that she should have stayed home and rested when the words fall from her mouth.

“Are you sure?” he asks hesitantly.

She’s sure. She’s seven tests sure.

–

The first time they were cautious. The second and third times they were scared.

This time. they’re terrified.

He doesn’t tell her, but he makes the decision to get a vasectomy if it doesn’t work this time. She’s had two emergency surgeries now, and while the option of birth control is always there, they like the intimacy of not using it. Besides, no contraception is entirely reliable and now he’s watched her bleeding out three times he won’t game with her life another time.

This is their last try. They prepare early on for the reality that it isn’t going to work.

–

Except it does work.

–

Morning sickness passes, and she’s still pregnant. Her stomach starts to grow in ways they’ve never witnessed before. She swells with the baby that doesn’t just survive, she thrives. She. Their daughter. They’re having a girl. They both cry when the doctor tells them. Oliver tells everyone they know, and she lets him on the condition that she gets to tell her mother. They’ll only experience this once, but that’s unsaid.

Oliver smiles all the time, smiles when her belly-button pops out, smiles the day she has to switch to maternity clothes and abandon her high heels, smiles at each stretch mark. He buys the first onesie, puts together all the baby furniture and paints the nursery. He starts experimenting with making his own baby food which she is the unfortunate test subject for and not all of it is terrible.

But she feels the baby move and that’s when she truly falls in love.

–

Four percent of babies are born on their due date. Oliver knows this because Felicity read it online and told him countless times, but on May 23rd he doesn’t leave his wife’s side, just in case. Of course Felicity’s child would be born right on schedule, and he jokes that he’s surprised their daughter hasn’t arrived two hours early with coffee out waiting for them and a scowl on her face that she won’t be doing so again.

But Alexis Moira Queen is born on May 31st at three minutes past midnight, a week past her due date and graduating the Oliver Queen school of timekeeping with screaming honours. And boy, does she scream. She has her mother’s vocal cords and her father’s temper, a deadly combination that makes them smile at first but four days later they just want to get some sleep and they’ll try anything to calm her down.

But the first time they hold their baby girl, the little bundle is loud enough to be heard in the hallway, leaving no doubt to their friends and family outside that the baby has been born, but they can’t bring themselves to care about anything but her. She’s here, with ten fingers, ten toes, and a strong, healthy heartbeat. She’s six pounds and two ounces of perfection.

And when shes handed to him, for the first time in years, Oliver’s hands shake.


	92. Planning Permission

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> thetaufactor said: HI! I Love your stories and the way you write… so I really want to read your take on how the scene where William learn that Oliver is his father and confront him about it… happen. Thank you so much! 
> 
> Anonymous said: prompt: Will calls Mommy’s friend in the middle of the night because he had a nightmare and thinks the Flash’s friend will help him.

The soft mumbles from beside her woke Felicity, and not for the first time that week. Since William had discovered that Oliver was easily contactable by his mother’s cellphone, he’d been making sneaky calls to ‘mom’s awesome friend Oliver’ in the middle of the night. She tried not to mind, because it was progress - it was William opening up to Oliver and the two of them close to Samantha agreeing for him to be more than just ‘Mom’s friend’ and for all their patience over the last four months, it was well earned.

“Okay, so do you think you can go back to sleep now? …. good,” Oliver mumbled, a sure sign that the call was about to end. Felicity cracked her eyes open a fraction to see Oliver lying across from her with his eyes closed, clearly not quite as awake as he had been the other nights that William had called.

“Well, I’ll be sure to call the Flash and tell him to run past just in case, and then you know you’ll be safe… Okay,” he muttered, and she noticed the tell-tale clench of his jaw that showed he was fighting back a yawn. She wondered if he’d even opened his eyes to accept the call or if he’d blindly answered it thinking it was an emergency.

“Go put your mother’s cell phone back, or she’ll be mad,” he instructed over the phone, in what she’d teased him two days ago to be his ‘dad voice’ and he’d argued that he certainly didn’t have one of those. “I’ll see you next weekend… Night, son.”

Son.

_Son._

He shut off the phone and put it aside without looking where it was going. He didn’t even flinch when it slipped off the edge of the bedside table and landed on the floor - but Felicity did because the case he had on it really wasn’t strong enough for the treatment that poor phone got and she wasn’t repairing the screen again. But as he rolled onto his side to face her, sliding his arm back around her waist and settling back into her warmth, she realised he may not have understood what had just happened in his half-awake state.

“Oliver…”

“He’s fine, he’s going back to sleep,” he muttered, his voice rumbling with exhaustion.

Nope, absolutely no idea. “Oliver, you just-”

His eyes flew open, his entire body frozen in place as he tightened his hand around her hip. “Oh god, what did I just say?”

“You said-”

“Oh, _shit_.”

–

“Oliver, you need to stop beating yourself up about it.”

He shook his head as he paced the bedroom. She’d come up to find him a few moments ago and found him muttering to himself and alternating between trying to make a phone call and running his hand over his short hair. “Samantha won’t even take my calls,” he announced, sitting down on the edge of the bed and placing his head in his hands.

She stepped over to him, stopped right before him where he could fall into his more favoured position of his head against her torso with his hands wound around her waist. “Oliver-”

“Everything was going fine, Felicity, what if I’ve ruined my chance to be a part of his life?” he murmured.

“Hey, listen to me,” she said, drawing his attention up to her as her hands settled on his cheeks. “I don’t think you’ve ruined it. Maybe you’ve sped up a few overdue conversations, but I don’t think it’s ruined.”

Oliver didn’t look convinced, shaking his head despite the restricted movement by her hands. “Every time she’s given me a condition to stick to, I’ve broken it,” he pointed out. “I told you about William when she asked me not to-”

“-to be fair, I did have to drag that information out of you-”

“-and now I’ve told him that I’m his father before she’s ready to talk to him about it.”

“You’ve been ready for a long time though, that has to matter somewhere down the line,” she reasoned.

“What if I’ve proved I’m not trustworthy?” he wondered. “That I’m not the father he deserves-”

“Hey, stop that now,” she told him firmly. “You will be a wonderful father when - not if, when - she gives you the opportunity to do so,” she assured him, cutting him off before he could even begin to interrupt midway through. “I have no doubt that one day when we have kids you’ll be an amazing father to them, so this is no different.”

At the mention of a family of their own, she saw the familiar flicker of longing on his face. He wanted a baby of their own, perhaps more than he wanted to marry her in the first place - he wanted them to be a family - but they’d agreed they wouldn’t act on that thought until things with William were settled. But his hopeful glance was quickly clamped down by his far more urgent concerns.

“I just… What if she decides I can’t see him any more?” he asked quietly, a hint of fear in his tone that he’d only allow himself to show within the safety of her trust.

“I don’t think you need to worry about that.”

“What makes you so sure?” he mused.

“Because Samantha just dropped him off, and he’s waiting in the living room.”

—

Oliver made his way downstairs with apprehension churning in his stomach. For all his concerns around being William’s father, how he would react in the moment was his biggest one. Going from one of his mother’s friends to his father in an instant was a big adjustment, and perhaps it wasn’t one that William was welcome to right then.

But still, something in his heart seemed to jump when he saw William perched on the edge of the couch, absentmindedly kicking his foot against the leg of the coffee table. When he heard Oliver’s footsteps he looked up, and Oliver forced a calm smile as he crossed the living room.

“Hey, Will. Where’s your Mom?” he asked.

“She went for a walk. She thinks we need to talk.”

He winced. So, things had been very much placed out in the open. He would have preferred if Samantha had at least forewarned him, or at least told him exactly how honest he was supposed to be with his son. “I’m sure you have a lot of questions.”

“Millions,” William answered.

“Great. I’ll answer all of them,” he assured him, sitting down on the coffee table opposite him.

“Felicity said not to ask you about math.”

“What?” he blinked.

William looked at him as if his words had been entirely justified. “I told Felicity I had questions for you, and she said that was good but not to ask you anything about math because you’re bad at math.”

At that, a small laugh escaped him, shaking his head. “That’s…right.”

“I’m really good at math,” he bragged.

“I know, your mom told me.”

“Mom told me you’re my Dad.”

He sucked in a breath, rubbing his hands together as he rested his elbows on his knees. “That’s right, I am.”

“But you don’t live with us,” he stated.

“No, I don’t. I live here, with Felicity.”

“I know that Moms and Dads don’t always have to live together, or to love each other. Mom had boyfriends before, and I know you love Felicity, and that’s okay,” William said.

A smile crossed Oliver’s lips. “You’re a very smart boy.”

“Have you always lived here?” he asked.

“I have,” he nodded. “I was born here, and I lived here with my parents. I went away to college but I didn’t like it, so I came back here, then I …went away for a while, but I came home as soon as I could.” He may not be sure exactly how honest he was supposed to be, but he was completely certain that he didn’t want his son knowing about his time away yet. “Now I live here with Felicity, and my sister lives very close by as well.”

He nodded slowly. “Mom said you didn’t know I’d been born.”

“No, she didn’t want me to know.”

“Why?”

“Because I wasn’t a good man nine years ago,” he said simply. “I wasn’t in any position to be a good father to you, and your mother wanted you to have a good life.”

“Are you a better man now?” he checked.

“I’m trying to be,” he nodded. “I’ve changed a lot since I’ve been away.”

“Do you think you can be a good Dad now?”

Oliver drew in a breath, shifting forward a few inches as he tried to read the boy before him. He’d always been hard to read, hesitant and closed off before he’d throw his enthusiasm into anything, and Oliver was getting rather anxious to see whether he was having a good or bad reaction to this yet. “Will. Nothing has to happen now unless you want it to, you know that don’t you?” he said quietly.

“But, Mom said-”

“Regardless of what your mother said, nothing has to change unless you want it to,” Oliver said firmly. “If you want me to carry on being Mom’s friend Oliver, then I can be that person still.”

He went quiet for a moment, his foot starting to kick against the bottom of the couch as if it were a nervous habit. “Would you still take me to meet the Flash for my birthday?” he asked.

“Of course. He’s really excited to meet you,” he smiled, recalling how he’d essentially sworn Barry to every single favour he’d ever called in to ensure it was possible.

“Would Felicity come?” he asked, flickering his eyes beyond Oliver, towards the stairs that she had disappeared up to find him.

“Felicity has to come. The Flash likes her a little more than he likes me.”

William smiled a little, but then it dropped as he squinted his eyes slightly. “What if I wanted you to be my Dad?”

“Then…I’d be very happy with that,” Oliver told him gently.

“But would you be sad if I didn’t?”

“No. I wouldn’t,” he explained, but the boy looked confused so he elaborated. “Will, I spent a long time not knowing about you, and now that I do, I’m so happy to know that you have a good life, and even though I haven’t been a part of that life, you’re still a part of me. But having a Dad is a big thing. There are things I’m sure you wanted to do with a Dad, and things I wanted to do with a son, and we can do those things if you want to, but if we don’t, I’m happy just to be a part of your life, whatever you want that to be.”

“I like you being my friend, Oliver,” William told him quietly.

“I like being your friend too.”

“But I think I might like you more as a Dad.”

His heart skipped a beat. He wouldn’t have understood that warmth in his chest unless he’d opened himself up to Felicity during the last year, because it was the same adoration that flickered through him in that moment. “Yeah?” he asked, his voice hopeful.

“Does that make Felicity my step-mom?” he asked.

“It would when we get married next month.”

“I like Felicity,” William smiled, the grin on his face certain when he spoke about her.

“She’s great, isnt she?” Oliver agreed.

“She said she could teach me how to make my xBox faster.”

“Go careful with her,” he warned cautiously. “I haven’t found a single game she can lose at yet.”

William just tilted his head, giving him a defiant expression. “I don’t lose at anything.”

“So does that mean, if it’s okay with your Mom, maybe you’d like to come and stay with us for a weekend?” he asked, testing the idea out. “You and Felicity can play on the xBox, and I can introduce you to your Aunt Thea, and we can do…whatever you want.”

He nodded eagerly. “Do you think Mom would let me stay longer than a weekend?” he attempted.

“No. You still have to go to school,” Oliver pointed out.

William’s face fell. “Oh.”

Oliver was quick to jump on an alternative idea though. “But, if we do a few weekends, and you enjoy yourself, then maybe we can talk to her about something a bit longer during the summer vacation. How does that sound?”

The response was a smile and a broad nod. “I think that sounds good.”

“Okay.”

“So, can I call you Dad now?” he asked.

“Only if you want to.”

“Okay…Dad.”

There it was again, that ripple across his heart that he wanted to feel for the rest of his life. It was what he felt when Felicity lazily sauntered up to him and kissed him in the mornings, unguarded and precious. It was what he felt when his little sister laughed, when Diggle’s daughter tried to say his name, and now, when his son was calling him Dad for the first time.

“How was that?” he asked.

“It’s pretty cool to have a Dad at last,” William told him.

“I think it’s pretty cool to have a son,” he agreed.

“Will I have to change my last name?” he asked.

Oliver shook his head. “No, you won’t have to.”

“That’s good, because all my friends know my name.”

He tried not to break into another laugh. “Why don’t we call your Mom and ask her to come back, and we can talk to her and Felicity about some of the things we want to do?” he suggested.

And just like that; he was a father.

—

“So, how are you feeling?” Felicity asked as they settled into bed that night.

Oliver drew her around him, their legs knotting together beneath the sheet as he finally allowed himself a moment to rest his mind. After Samantha had come back, the four of them had gone out for a late lunch which had turned into an early dinner to talk things through, and as soon as they’d seen them back onto the train to Central City, Oliver had wanted nothing more than to sink into bed and not be at all ashamed it was before nine o’clock.

“Emotionally drained,” he sighed heavily, dancing his fingers over her bare arm. “I wish I’d had more time to prepare for that.”

She hummed her agreement as her free hand traced his shoulder before it settled in the curve of the back of his neck. “Did you get everything you wanted?”

“What do you mean?”

“I know you’ve been trying not to get your hopes up with any of this, but I think you’ve also been holding onto an idea of how this would go in a perfect world,” she pointed out.

“We don’t live in a perfect world,” he mused.

“No, we don’t,” she agreed, stroking her thumb over the sensitive spot on the back of his neck. “But we have little things that make it perfect.”

He sighed, turning his head to brush his lips across the inside of her wrist. “We do.”

“So, are you happy with the new arrangement?”

He nodded slightly. “William gets to spend every other weekend here, and if he enjoys it up here, we can see about him spending some of the school holidays up here,” he said, reciting their plan once again.

“It’s a big change for you.”

“A big change for us,” he corrected her.

“Hey, don’t worry about me,” she brushed off his concern. “We’re in this together, remember?”

“I just don’t want you to think I’m dragging you into this-”

She cut him off with a kiss. “Oliver, remember how we talked about the point of marriage being that we get through the hard times because we’re together?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, this a hard time right now. We’re going to need to make changes to our lives so that William can be a part of it, and we need to get to know him, and he needs to get to know us as well. None of that is going to be easy,” she pointed out.

“No, it isn’t,” he sighed.

“But one day, it will be,” she assured him lightly. “One day this is all going to be second nature, and we’ll be arguing about which one of us is meeting him off the train, or negotiating changing our weekends to have him so we can celebrate our anniversary, or taking him on vacation with us…” she flashed him a smile. “One day he could be coming over to meet a new brother or sister and by that time we’ll have new things to be terrified about.”

He could feel his apprehension slipping away, a combination of exhaustion and Felicity settling him into a state of pure comfort. “What would I do without you?” he wondered aloud.

“I dread to think,” she deadpanned, waiting for his smile before she shuffled forward into his arms, the two of them settling into a familiar embrace. “Don’t worry, okay? This is going to be hard, but we’re going to do it because this is what we do for family.”

“He loves you, you know,” Oliver assured her.

“I know, I’m amazing,” she grinned to herself.

“He thinks he can beat you on the xBox.”

She went suspiciously quiet for a moment with a small hum. “Well, I guess we just figured out what we’re doing on our first weekend visit with him,” she challenged.

Oliver leaned down, dipping a kiss to her hairline. “I’m glad we’re doing this together.”

“So am I,” she agreed. “It might not be conventional, but it’s just the next chapter of our lives starting. And maybe him coming in two weeks will stop you worrying about the wedding so much.”

“I’m not worrying-”

“Sure you are, Mr. Smoak,” she cut him off.

He raised his eyebrow, his eyes darting down to her. “You can’t get away with that much longer, Mrs. Queen.”


	93. Patch Job

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anonymous said: I’ve requested this before but you didn’t respond :’(, but could you write a fic where oliver has to change felicity’s dressings after she is released from the hospital. And he is worried about her pushing herself. Also the moment would parallel all the times that she has patched him (and all of Team Arrow) up…
> 
> A/N: Just a reminder guys, if I don’t respond, it’s only because I get a lot of prompts and not as much free time as I used to get! If I haven’t responded, it means I either haven’t got it or it’s queued to be worked on. Also, since this prompt came in before the paralysis diagnosis, I’m sticking this with the ‘got shot’ category I originally imagined for it.

“Okay?” Oliver checks for the fifth time.

Her reply was a muffled ‘mm-hmm’ through tightened lips that made his stomach twist, something that reminds him of their time in the hospital. She’d hated it in there, surrounded by needles and doctors that made her crave home, but the price to pay for her early release was allowing Oliver to be shown how to take care of her dressings.

Which had been fine, until she’d moved a little too quickly and knew that she’d torn a stitch.

She’d been lucky to escape with minor injuries, as far as bullet wounds went, managing to avoid damage to her vital organs but the problematic wound was the one currently receiving his attention. Every time Oliver saw it, it was a reminder of how close to her kidneys it had been, and how close he had came to losing her as she bled out in his arms.

“Felicity, it’s almost over,” he assured her, leaning forward and planting a kiss on the back of her head.

She just nodded firmly, wrapping her arms tightly around the pillow she held in her lap and screwing her face up.

He’d never wanted to be the one stitching her up. He’d insisted they go to the hospital but she didn’t want to go, knowing that he could easily do it himself, but the term ‘easy’ failed to comply with how little he wanted to poke a needle and thread through the skin of his fiance.

Setting the needle aside, he started to clean the residue of his work away, focusing on the little touches that had always assured him when she’d been the one to patch him up. He’d always focused on how her fingers would press just enough into his lower back to assure of her presence, as if she might steady him should he need to lean into her, or how her fingers would brush against his side as she pulled his shirt down. He could do the same for her now, dance his fingers against spots he knew well would relax her, and he circled his thumbs against the base of her spine before he pulled her sweater back down over the replaced bandage.

“All done,” he assured her, placing his lips against the back of her neck.

“No more?” she checked through bitten lips.

“None,” he assured, pulling her back against him along with the pillow in her lap, running his hands over her stomach as he drew her in. “Next time, we do this through the hospital,” he told her.

“No next time,” she mumbled, her voice softened from the painkillers she’d taken beforehand. “I’ll be more careful.”

“Good,” he said, planting his lips on her temple. “Why don’t you get comfortable? I’ll make us some dinner.”

She agreed with a small hum, but after he’d shifted her on the couch and gotten her comfortable she reached up to grasp his hand and squeeze it. “Thanks for patching me up,” she mumbled.

He leaned over the arm of the couch to her and pressed his lips to hers. “Always.”


	94. Slow-Cooked to Perfection

“What are you doing?”

Felicity froze, her eyes widening as she stopped the rhythmic action of her wrist. “Nothing,” she lied, her voice a tight squeak.

“Felicity…”

“Everything is under control,” she assured him, blindly waving her hand behind her to prevent him easing her aside, but she heard that additional step he took. Hesitant. Nervous. So unlike Oliver Queen, but regardless, she heard a tremor in his voice when he spoke.

“Are you…using the slow cooker?”

So maybe his fear was justified. After all, she’d never used the slow cooker before, and she’d never had any interest in doing so. She’d scoffed when Laura Hoffman had presented them with one as a welcome gift while they were unpacking into their Ivy Town home - why on earth would they want something that meant food took longer to prepare? And worse - it filled the house with a teasing aroma of food she knew would be delicious but she wasn’t allowed to touch. She wasn’t even allowed to look at it, the only one allowed near a slow cooker while it was turned on was Oliver, who would lift its coveted lid once an hour and stir the contents.

But enough was enough. She wanted to learn.

“Well, I read this article on the internet-”

“Oh no,” he mumbled behind her, and she turned to raise an eyebrow at how he was biting at his lip.

“Technically it was a blog entry-”

“Oh God, what are you doing?” he asked, the question bursting out before he could attempt to hold it in.

She glared at him. “The recipe said it was idiot-proof, Oliver, I think I can handle this.”

“Felicity, the omelette…”

“Omelettes shouldn’t have twelve ingredients, Oliver,” she huffed. “The whole thing was a set up. Now, go do whatever it is you were doing. Dinner should be another hour.”

He inhaled sharply, and she raised an eyebrow.

“What?”

“Nothing,” he shook his head quickly.

Felicity stepped towards him, narrowing her eyes slightly. “Oliver…”

“It’s just…” he thought his words over, bringing his fingertips up to his chin in a mock-prayer position. “You don’t cook dinner.”

“I do tonight,” she stated, nodding towards the slow cooker as she folded her arms over her chest.

“But you…don’t cook,” he added.

She lifted her chin daringly. “You mean, I can’t cook.”

“I didn’t say that,” he assured her quickly.

“But you meant it,” she pointed out.

“You wanting to cook is wonderful,” Oliver said with a firm nod. “I think it’s great, really, but I just…don’t want you to throw yourself out of your depth,” he reasoned.

She glanced between the slow cooker and him a few times. “It said it was idiot proof.”

“What recipe is it?” he asked.

“Curry,” she stated proudly.

She didn’t miss the way his eyes widened slightly. “That’s not exactly a…”

“Idiot proof,” she repeated. “I’ve even cooked the chicken fresh.”

That time, a gasp caught in his chest.

“You actually think I’m going to poison you, don’t you?” she said, her voice low with a hint of betrayal.

His silence told her everything that she needed to know.

“No curry for you,” she decided, turning on her heel and going back to the slow cooker.

He was quick on her heels, placing his hands around her waist when he stepped behind her. “Felicity, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to-”

“I’m trying to make us a romantic meal,” she huffed.

“I know,” he dropped a kiss to the back of her head as she placed the lid back on the slow cooker and dropped her hands into the counter. “But the last time you tried to cook us a romantic dinner…”

“It was only a small fire,” she defended. “Besides, only five percent of kitchen fires are started by slow-cookers, and seventy-percent are caused by the stove.”

“Well, some people consider fire a deterrent…” he reasoned.

“Oliver, stop it,” she said with determination. “I am cooking us a romantic dinner, and we’re going to have an enjoyable evening that we’ll remember for the rest of our lives.”

“The rest of our lives?” he asked curiously. “Will we have an insurance report to remember it by?”

She pinched the skin on the back of his hand, satisfied when he recoiled it for a moment before replacing it around her waist. “No, because it’s…it’s just going to be a magical evening, okay? So go do your thing and dinner will be ready for an hour.”

“Can I ask you a question?” he asked before he stepped away.

“What?” Felicity asked.

“Why the slow cooker? We could have ordered in Indian food…”

“Because sometimes things just take eight hours to cook,” she reasoned, her eyes averting as she closed the recipe page open on her laptop and shut the lid.

His curiosity peaked, and he turned her in her arms, placing her back against the counter. “Is that right?” he pried.

She started to chew on her lower lip. “Sometimes they take a little longer. Like… eight months or so… “

A glint in his eye sparked quicker than the slow, disbelieving grin that spread across his face, and she knew he’d caught on to what she was suggesting. His hands gripped her a little tighter, and she shook her head.

“No, no reacting,” she told him, poking a finger against his chest. “I’m going to tell you properly over our romantic dinner, so you have to wait.”

But his grin remained. “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” she told him through half a laugh.

“But I think I’ve figured it out,” he hinted.

“Well, if you hadn’t insulted my cooking, you’d get to react now,” she pointed out, slipping out of his embrace just as his hand ghosted over her stomach.

“Dinner’s ready in an hour?” he checked.

“Yep,” she insisted, turning her head to catch his gaze.

“Okay, I’ve just got to head out for a while.”

This time, she turned to him with curiosity. “What for?”

“No idea,” he stated simply, reaching into the bowl that held his keys with a grin on his face that could only be described at ‘goofy’. “Just have this overwhelming urge to buy something.”

An hour and twenty-minutes later, after they’d eaten a successful meal that was entirely edible, Felicity officially announced her pregnancy over a table filled with as many roses as Oliver had been able to carry home.


	95. Desperate Measures

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Inspired by this post about the missing ring.

“Felicity?”

Oliver knelt down before her, distracting her attention from the glint on her left hand. She swallowed thickly, closing her eyes for a brief moment as his hand closed over hers, trying to imagine them far away from this reality. Moments like this, moments she needed a brief escape, her mind would take her back to Ivy Town, back to the suburban nightmare she couldn’t wait to escape once but now was her one reprieve.

“Felicity,” he prompted again, and her eyes opened, slowly drawing up to his face with a shudder in her inhale.

“I don’t want to give it back,” she whispered, tears pooling in her eyes.

Oliver merely gripped her hand tighter. “I don’t want to take it back,” he agreed, shaking his head lightly. “But if this keeps you safe…”

“What happened to this being my choice?” she asked him. “About getting through the hard times because we’re together?”

The regret that fills his eyes was unlike anything she’d ever seen before, leaving a nauseated feeling in the pit of her stomach. Oliver making a sacrifice was never without a shred of pain in his gaze, despite the fact that he was usually ready to sacrifice anything and everything to keep the people he loved safe, but an Oliver making a sacrifice of something he wanted to cling into and never let go was heartbreaking.

This was killing him, she could see that.

“We don’t have any other choice right now,” he forced himself to say. His neck kept twitching, the instinct to lower his gaze tempting him, but he cemented his attention on her. As if he didn’t know when he’d get this opportunity again. “Darhk already got to you once again, and after William, I-” he broke off, swallowing thickly.

She brought her hand up to his cheek, holding it in place. “I covered their tracks,” she assured him. “William and Samantha are off the grid completely, Darhk won’t find them. He’ll be safe.”

“I know,” he sighed. “I wish I-”

“I understand,” she assured him. “What you did maybe wasn’t the best, I wish you’d told me sooner, but… I understand that you were put it a difficult situation and you were trying to do what was best for your child.”

The words seemed to hurt him more than help him, and his free hand closed over hers, holding it in place. “What we’re doing now isn’t about keeping William safe, it’s about keeping you safe,” he reminded her.

“I know, I just…wish we didn’t have to do this,” she breathed. “What happens now?”

He drew in a long breath, releasing it against her palm before his lips pressed firmly to it. “You’re going to go back to the loft, and your Mom and Laurel are going with you,” he told her. “I’m going to stay at Digg’s tonight, and tomorrow I’ll move my things out.”

Her breath hitched, and her gaze flickered down. His hand left hers, coming up to the back of her neck. “Oliver, I don’t want to-”

“Felicity, we don’t-”

“I’ll take the risk,” she insisted. “I’ll risk the danger, I’ll risk _everything_ , I just-”

“Felicity, I can’t lose you,” he insisted, his words firm as he raised his forehead to press against hers. Here, she could feel every tremor in his breath, every single hitch that matched the ones causing the pain in her chest. “I have almost lost _everything_ , I have almost lost my son, my sister, my own life, you…and I…” he swallowed, his tongue darting out to his lip before he bit down on it. “Felicity, if I have to spend another day of my life wondering if you’re going to _live_ , I won’t survive,” he confessed. “So please, if doing this for a few months means that a year from now we can have a life together without any threat, I have to do this.”

She pulled her hands away from him, lowering them to her lap where she gripped them tightly before she slid the engagement ring off her finger. She didn’t hide the single choked sound that caught in her throat when she pressed it into Oliver’s palm, closing his fingers around it. “I want this back after,” she told him.

“I’ll be home every night,” he assured her. “I’ll sneak in when no one’s watching, and-”

“Oliver, Darhk will know,” she reminded him quietly. “If we’re going to do this, we have to do this properly. Which means you can’t live in Digg’s couch, we’ll have to find somewhere for you to-”

“I don’t want a home without you,” he whispered, so quietly she almost missed it.

“Oliver-”

“Guys, we’re running out of time,” Diggle said, interrupting them.

They both drew back with a gathering breath, Oliver slipping his hand into his pocket to hide the ring away, and Felicity tucked her hair behind her ears, wiping a hand over her face.  “Oliver-” she started.

She was cut off with a pair of lips against hers, firm yet tender. It reminded her of _don’t ask me to say that I don’t love you_ , of _let’s not say goodbye_ , and it brought her tears onto her cheeks at last. She supposed that wasn’t a bad thing - she was supposed to convince the public that her engagement had just ended. Which it hadn’t. Except it had. When they parted, she kept her eyes closed.

“I love you,” he told her, pressing his lips once more to hers, then to her cheek, her temple, and her forehead. “I _love_ you, and we’re going to get through this.”

“Don’t do anything stupid,” she warned him tightly. “I need that to be a promise.”

“I promise,” he agreed instantly.

“Okay,” she nodded. “I love you, too.”

He swallowed thickly, biting his lip. “One more time?”

“I love you,” she repeated, pulling him in for another kiss before sound from beyond their circle interrupted them. They were out of time, and action was needed.

They could survive this.

At least, she hoped they could.


	96. Glitterbombs

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> goodytissues said: Oliver and Felicity undressing after their engagement party and Felicity finds some unexpected glitter on Oliver’s (naked) body cue encore of “you look good in glitter” ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

He hears the giggle before she can clamp her lips down, and he’s not at all suspecting to see covering her face with her hands when he turns to her.

She’s been settled in bed for a few moments already, casually scrolling through a few emails while he gets ready for bed. She’s wearing that black satin nightgown that she knows he loves, but he knows she won’t be wearing it for very long. After all, they have news to celebrate. It’s not only their engagement party, but Curtis has presented them with an amazing opportunity tonight, and while they don’t want to put all their hopes on something so soon, they’re both excited about the possibility nonetheless.

But as his shirt comes off and is thrown in the laundry hamper, she giggles, and he has to say, that’s not his favourite reaction to his body.

She’s traced her hands over his scars, over the ridges of his muscles, and she’s looked at him with admiration, with love, with a needing lust, but this is pure humour and he’s never seen it on her face when she’s been eyeing him up before.

“Something funny?” he asked, raising an eyebrow at her as he approached the end of the bed.

“Nope,” she responded quickly, slamming her lips together and shaking her head.

“Really?” he pressed, noticing the way she was flicking her eyes to his chest and back again.

“Nothing at all,” she rushed the words out.

He took his belt off slowly, dropping it on the dresser as he took of his pants, holding her eye contact as he started to make his way towards her in just his boxers. The closer he got to the lamp, the more she tried to contain her smile, and when he stood right before it, she couldn’t hold it in anymore.

She laughed.

And she laughed hard.

He waited patiently (okay, maybe that was a lie) for her to finish before he arched his eyebrow at her, noting how she wiped tears from beneath her eyes, but that a giggled aftershock hit her each time she looked back at him.

“I’m sorry,” she laughed out.

“Yeah, you look real sorry,” he noted sarcastically.

“It’s just…” she gestured at him. “You look…”

He glanced down, seeing nothing and this time he frowned at her. “What?”

“You’re covered in glitter,” she told him before she burst out laughing again.

Oliver turned to see his reflection in the mirror across from the bed, and from that angle, he could see how the lamplight hit him, revealing a dusting of glitter over most of his body. Most of it, naturally, was bright pink.

His face turned dark, glaring at his reflection before he reached for his bathrobe and started to walk out.

“Where are you going?” she called after him, not even trying to contain her laughter.

“To have a word with your mother,” he called back, heading towards the guest room. “Donna!”


	97. Skip to the Good Bit

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anonymous said: Olicity - how about we skip right to Oliver and Felicity making up after Felicity found out about William, the funeral, and all that drama is settled.

“Can we just skip this?”

Her voice is exasperated, the kind of tired she looks as though she’s feeling down to her bones. An hour ago they buried a friend, buried a loved one that has been lost to their crusade, and he’s certain that a more went down into ground alongside them. Their will to fight is gone. Everything comes down to the death of Darhk now, but in that moment, they can’t even fight for that. So her voice draws out a part of him that he’s shut away since she pressed his engagement ring back into his palm.

When he says nothing, she continues, turning in her chair to face him. He can see the exhaustion written over her face then, still dressed in black though she’s discarded her coat.

“All the fighting, the being mad at each other… the blame and the lies and the hard talks… can we just…skip it?” she asks.

There are fights they need to have. They need to clear the air, to get everything out and discuss it properly. They need to talk about William, about the secrets he kept for Samantha. They need to talk about how and why he kept it from her. But he’s right there with her on the will to skip it. It’s a talk that will hurt them both, and the words involved have already been shouted out and pleaded with enough times that they’re just…tired.

He approaches her, hands in his shoulder as he stands a few feet away from her. “Felicity…this isn’t something we should skip,” he says regretfully.

“Then we need to fast-forward, or something,” she suggests, her voice wavering. “Because I have a thousand things to be unhappy about right now, and all I want is to go home with the man I love and focus on something good.”

He wants that too. He wants to go back to how easy it was to hold her in his arms and fall asleep. He wants to go back to where they were so badly, but where they were was a lie, and they need to find something new. But they can’t fight for it, not when they’re fighting for everyone else.

He squats down before her chair, trying not to think about the time he knelt before her and asked her to marry him. “I swear, I will never hide anything from you again,” he tells her. “I will never conceal anything, or make you doubt my trust and my love for you.”

Her shoulders sag a little in the realisation of what he’s doing. He’s skipping the fight. He’s making a way forward for them. “I know,” she whispers. “I won’t ever make you choose between me and William.”

“Felicity-”

“Never,” she says clearly. “William is a part of your family, and that makes him a part of our family,” she tells him. “Whatever you need to do for him, we’ll do it together.”

He sighs, dipping his head forward as he does but she skates her hand over the back of his head and he almost melts from the touch. “We still need to talk about this,” he reminds her.

“I know,” she agrees, as heavy as the thought was. “But the important things have been said.”

“Yeah,” he murmurs.

“Let’s go home, Oliver,” she tells him, placing her hands down over his. “Take me home.”

And he does. Everything else can be skipped.


	98. Bottom of the Bottle

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anonymous said: Drabble: how about it’s been some time since Felicity and Oliver have broken up and Oliver misses her so much that he drunk calls her or even he goes to see her cause he can’t help himself? I love angst :)

She knows from the sniff on the other end of the phone that he’s been drinking.

Oliver drinks a lot these days. Not a lot by normal people’s standards, but a lot by his own. He’s deceptively good at nursing the same drink throughout an entire evening when required to make a public appearance, but lately she’s seen him finish several glasses, and those were just the ones that she’d noticed. She knows that alcohol allows him to put demons to rest for a few hours, and right now, she imagines he has plenty of those.

“Oliver, how much have you had to drink?” she asks him calmly.

“Not enough,” he mumbles.

She fights back the sigh. This isn’t the first time he’s called her this week. In fact, it’s the fourth night in a row. Usually he doesn’t speak. He just apologies for waking her - as if she wasn’t already awake, sat up in a bed which was far too big for her now - and then hangs up before she can get a word in edgeways. But tonight he’s lingering.

“Where are you staying tonight?” she asks.

He’s been sleeping at the lair mostly, because it enables him to shower and change quickly enough to give the appearance of the mayor-to-be throwing himself into work at all hours of the day. She wished that was the work he was throwing himself into, but it’s not. Sometimes he sleeps at Diggle’s house, but she knows he prefers not to, that the presence of a toddler right now is a stark reminder of why they aren’t together, and watching John be a father is a horrifying reminder that he cannot be the father he wants to be.

“I don’t know,” he murmurs.

That isn’t like him. The lair is always his option, and that he can’t be there tonight means that tonight is a very, very bad night for him. He’s been drinking a lot, he can’t find a safe place, and dammit, she does love him despite everything.

“Where are you?” she whispers.

“Verdant,” he tells her, and though his voice is louder it’s certainly unfocused, and she can hear each thick swallow. He’s been crying. That’s a voice she knows well in the middle of the night.

“Why are you there?”

“Ran out of vodka,” he answers.

“Oliver…”

“I can’t sleep,” he cuts her off, his voice choked. She falls silent letting him speak, and not just because she doesn’t know what to say. “I know I shouldn’t call, that I…I’ve done unforgivable things, Felicity, I just…” Her eyes close when he says her name. Even now, it stirs in her chest like it’s the only person who ever needs to speak her name again. “I miss you. I’m allowed to miss you, aren’t I?”

“Yeah,” she replies, surprised at how croaked her voice sounds.

“Do you miss me?”

She stumbles on that question, because she shouldn’t. He lied to her, he kept a gargantuan secret from her, and she can’t, shouldn’t, forgive it so easily.

But she does miss him. She misses his arms around her at night. She misses laying on the couch surrounded by the scents of whatever dish he’s making for dinner. She misses the way he says her name, the way he looks at her like nothing else matters but her. Nothing is the same without him in the loft. The stairlift Curtis had helped her install isn’t nearly as comfortable as his arms carrying her up and down the stairs. The closet looks too small without his things. Everything is too big, too quiet, too empty.

“Oliver-”

“Please,” he gasps down the phone. “Please, I need to know.”

She swallows thickly before answering. “Yes. I miss you.”

“Have I lost you?” he asks quietly.

She hears the sound of a bottle being put down through the phone. She wonders how many empties are around him. “I don’t think we should talk about this when you’ve been drinking, Oliver.”

“I need to know,” he repeats desperately. “I need to know if we can work through this someday or if I’ve lost you for good.”

She realises then what demons are plaguing him tonight. He’s remembering the lives that have been lost, the people he’s loved who have been taken from him, and all the time he’s within arms reach of the woman he loves more than any of them and he can’t be with her. So he needs to hear her voice.

He needs to know if there is anything left to hope for.

“I love you, Oliver,” she hears herself tell him. The sound he makes at her words strikes her in the chest, paining her with the longing and need she hears in his strangled sound. It’s the hope he needs.

“I can’t sleep,” he repeats, his voice far softer this time.

“Come home,” she tells him, wincing internally at how terrible a decision it may be. “Come home, come to bed, get some sleep. We can talk about things tomorrow.”

She feigns sleep when he arrives at the loft thirty minutes later. She waits to hear the front door close, waits to hear him stumble up the stairs, and fights to breathe evenly, facing away from him when he lingers in the doorway for a moment. She wonders if he’s taking a moment to look at a sight he’s feared he’ll never see again, or whether he’s hesitating, but he falls into bed beside her anyway.

He lies on his side facing her, she can feel him breathing against the back of her neck, but he doesn’t touch her. She’s glad for that, because she knows that she’d have surrendered to him, that she’d have nestled into his arms and lost her composure and that is not what tonight is for. Tonight he needs to sleep, and he is asleep in seconds in the comfort of his own bed, with the woman he loves only inches away from him.

He’s gone when she wakes. She fears he’s pushed her away again, but she makes her way downstairs and finds him with a cup of coffee for her, breakfast in progress beyond him. She isn’t sure if it’s an apology or a thank you, but he assures her that it’s both.

And then they talk.

He doesn’t need to drink that night.


	99. Morning Appointments

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anonymous said: unsure if you’re taking prompts again but wanted to leave this one in your ask before I forget it: Oliver takes a slightly unwilling/horny pregnant felicity to birthing or Lamaze class

“C’mon, wake up.”

Felicity groaned, trying to shut out his voice as she pulled the duvet tighter around her. “No…” she protested.

“Felicity, we’re going to be late.”

She didn’t care. She really didn’t care. Besides, why did he care? Since when did Oliver Queen care about being on time.

“Since you insisted that if we went to a Lamaze class, it had to be the best one in the city, and unfortunately, it meets at nine o’clock.”

Oh, so she said that out loud.

But it wasn’t her fault. She’d barely slept for an hour last night. Now that the baby had started kicking and moving around (yeah, she’d heard so many cute things about the baby kicking but everyone casually left out how the baby would literally flip inside her and hadn’t that been horrifying to witness for the first time) she spent more time trying to get comfortable than she did sleeping. Last night in particular she’d needed to go to the bathroom every time the baby had lain still, which lead her to believe she was possible pregnant with the anti-Christ.

“Felicity, you’re not giving birth to a demon.”

Still talking out loud, got it.

“Oliver, I’m too tired,” she grumbled, tugging an extra pillow - his, from the scent - underneath her arm and burrowing into it. “Baby’s finally not moving, so I’m not moving, and I’m getting some sleep.”

“Felicity-” he tried again, pulling on the duvet.

But she was faster, and stronger, and dammit she knew that until she gave birth to his child she was never going to be losing an argument against him. “Your baby wants to sleep and be warm.”

“Don’t blame this on the baby,” he told her.

“It’s this baby - your baby - that kept me up all night. So we’re staying here.”

“So I’ll just cancel this non-refundable nine-hundred dollar class?” he suggested.

She nodded into the pillow, shifting her legs slightly and humming contently when she finally got the comfortable position she’d been hoping for. Baby gave a small flutter against her side and settled again. Yep, second opinion approval. Not going anywhere. “I’ll write you a cheque if it bothers you,” she teased.

She knew he didn’t take it personally when the air shifted around her and then there were lips pressed to her forehead. “I’ll see if they do private sessions,” he told her.

“Mmm, good husband,” she praised tiredly, feeling sleep tugging at her.

“Sleep well, wife,” he mumbled back to her, just before she heard his footsteps fade out towards the doorway.

“Better,” she sighed contently, curling her hand around her stomach and drifting back asleep.

Send an ask if you wis


	100. Drabble

“Do you have to walk around like that?”

“Like what?”

“Wearing that. I am trying to concentrate.”

“Then concentrate.”

“We both know that’s not what’s happening?”

“Felicity, if you don’t like what I’m wearing, feel free to come over here and take it off.”

“You are impossible.”

“Felicity. Stop working. Come to bed.”

She slams her laptop lid closed with a huff when he tells her to come to bed. If he had it his way, she’d spent at least twenty-three hours a day in bed with him. If she had it her way, she’d agree. But work needs to be done tonight, and even though the laptop is closed and he’s wearing those _damn_ suspenders _again_ like he _knows_ , she makes him work for it.

“I’m too busy to remove your clothes,” she says airily. “Do it yourself.”

He stops, hands in his pockets as he arches an eyebrow at her. “Shame,” he noted. “I think you’ll like what I’m wearing underneath this,” he teased, starting to slowly unbutton his shirt.

While still wearing the suspenders.

_I both hate and love you, you giant gorgeous asshole._

“What are you wearing underneath?” she humors him.

“Nothing,” he whispers scandalously.

And then he’s stood before her, with an open white shirt, his firm chest on display, and the suspenders all that held him together. 

_Asshole._

“If I’m going to stop working, you’re going to have to make it worth it,” she tells him.

She’s not at all surprised when he pushes her laptop from between them and lifts her onto the desk. He reaches for the clip of the suspenders, and she stops him, going straight for the fly of his pants instead. 

“Keep those on,” she requests, not fighting back the shudder that erupts from his lips on her throat. 

“With pleasure,” he purrs back.


	101. No Pants Dance

“I’m going to need you to put some underwear before you say anything else.”

He words bring him to a halt, where he’s standing at the end of her bed, casually leaning his palms forward on the mattress as he talks to her. She’s doing her best to keep her eyes on his and not dropping down over every inch of the body that’s on display to her, but he can see the struggling winning out when she cracks a smile and interrupts him mid-sentence. The second she does, his mind wanders towards the suggestive arch of her eyebrow and he can’t even remember what he was talking about moments before.

He’s surprised he was talking at all, the way she’s sprawled out in the bed, the sheet only pulled up as far as her stomach. One arm rests over the edge of the cover, while the other stretches out behind her head, presenting a far too enticing image of this gorgeous woman he’d been curled around only moments before.

But she wants him to be wearing underwear, and there’s a problem with that.

“I don’t have any,” he tells her.

She lifts her head slightly from her arm. “What?”

“Well, it was raining, and you put my clothes in the dryer, so…”

He sees the recollection of their night together flicker over her eyes. Of course, with a night off he’d been straight over with a bottle of wine, only the storm had hit on the journey over, and when he’d arrived in a wet shirt it seemed to bring several of her fantasies to the surface. Twenty minutes later, she was gathering his wet clothes from where she’d tossed them aside and putting them in the dryer while he was still trying to catch his breath on the couch.

“You didn’t plan on staying over, did you?” she realises, tugging her lower lip between her teeth.

Technically speaking, no, he hadn’t planned on it. But now he’s here, he doesn’t want to leave, and he’s certainly in no rush to do reclaim his probably now-dry underwear from her dryer. He knows that he actually planned on coming over to have dinner and a bottle of wine, and see where the evening lead from there. They hadn’t been dating long enough to even consider themselves ‘public’ in terms of their closest friends, let alone to make assumptions about which bed they were sleeping in.

“Did you plan on me staying over?” he turns the question back on her.

She snorts in response. “Of course,” she pointed out, wriggling back beneath the sheet a little. “I was trying to seduce you.”

He watches the way the sheet brushes over her torso, grateful that she doesn’t take the opportunity to cover her bare breasts before he arches his eyebrow at her. “By doing my laundry?” he laughs slightly.

She rolls her eyes at him. “I didn’t say I was trying very well, but I was trying…besides, i didn’t plan on the laundry, you were…very distracting,” she sighs, this time incredibly obvious with the way her eyes drag over his bare form.

“Well, maybe I’d better stay a little longer,” he suggests, crawling onto the bed and resting over her on his forearms. The sheet between them leaves little to the imagination, especially as his lips start a well-favoured journey across her shoulder.

“What convinced you?” she asks, his ego drinking in the little breathless sound between her words.

“You promised me a seduction and I ruined it,” he points out, curling the tip of his tongue in the base of her throat. “I think we need a re-do.”

“You already got lucky once this morning,” she reminds him, though she eagerly tilts her head to the side, giving him the access his lips crave to trail up to her jaw.

He makes the journey slowly, savouring each slow touch of his lips against the skin that jumps beneath his touch. By the time he reaches her lips, he can feel her smile against him, the smile that reminds him of all the right decisions he’s made by taking this step with her.

“Felicity, with you, lucky doesn’t even cover it…”


	102. The Trouble With Girls

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anonymous said: Are you taking prompts?? If you are can please write one where William recently found out Oliver is his dad and gets maybe jealous/insecure because Felicity just found out she’s pregnant and William feels like Oliver won’t love him anymore????

“So, how’d you like your new sister?”

William shrugs, his legs still kicking off the couch as he plays with his cereal. He likes having breakfast here, it’s one of his favourite parts of staying at Dad’s for the weekend - because Felicity’s there and she’s always got the good cereal that Mom says is bad for him. Usually they have breakfast, play some xBox while Dad’s running, and then they’ll all go out for the day somewhere. That’s all changed lately.

Because of the sister.

“C’mon, she’s not that bad,” Felicity coaxes him, sitting down in the chair next to him with a bowl of cereal of her own. William rests his cheek against his fist. He knows he’s not supposed to have his elbows on the table, but Felicity’s got hers on there so he figures it’s not that bad. Maybe she’s just tired. She looks real tired.

“She’s loud,” he says eventually, swirling his spoon around again.

“Tell me about it,” Felicity agrees, rolling her eyes.

“Dad likes her a whole lot,” he adds.

Felicity goes real quiet like she’s thinking a lot. He likes Felicity. Everyone likes Felicity. If he has to have a Stepmom, he’s glad it’s her, because she’s really nice. Everyone says that she makes his Dad a better person, and he likes his Dad.

“Are you worried about sharing him?” she asks, adding a smile to her words like she’s teasing him. “You know, I had to get used to sharing him when you came along.”

“If you already had to share him with me, why did you get Charlotte?” he asks her.

“Because we love each other,” she explains. “I’m sure when your Mom meets someone she really loves, you’ll get even more siblings.”

He doesn’t really like the sound of that.

He’s about to speak again when they hear the baby crying upstairs again. William sighs, looking down at his cereal. “Dad’s not gonna have time for the park today, is he?” he realises sadly.

Because Charlotte needs her diaper changed a lot. She needs a lot of things, and she cries when she doesn’t get them, which he thinks is selfish because she gets Dad a whole seven days a week whenever she wants him, and Will only gets to see him every other weekend. It’s not very fair sharing.

“Yeah, he is,” Felicity assures him.

He gives her a disbelieving look, because when Charlotte cries they never leave the house for a few hours and his Mom’s coming to pick him up after lunch so he can get the train home in time for school tomorrow.

“You and your Dad are going, and I’m going to stay here with Charlotte.”

He frowns. “But-”

“I know since the baby came, we’ve had to change how we get to spend our weekends,” she explains. “But you know that we love it when you come to stay, and Charlotte being here doesn’t change that. You’re just as much a part of this family as she is, Will, you know that, don’t you?”

He does, really.

Because he has his own room, and she doesn’t even have that yet. She still sleeps in the crib in Dad and Felicity’s room, and he has his own room and he’s starting to get a whole new set of things here. He has his posters on the wall and he gets to pick dinner on Saturday night and she gets the same meal every day.

So he smiles when Dad comes down the stairs a few minutes later. “Kid swap,” Dad announces, handing baby Charlotte over to Felicity before his hands drop down on to Will’s shoulders. “Ready to go?” he asks.

“Ready,” he chirps, running off to get his shoes.

Dad asks what got into him when he runs off. He hears enough to know that Felicity didn’t rat him out on their talk. It’s what makes her cool.

If his sister has to make as much noise as Felicity does sometimes, he hopes she can be like her in other ways too.


	103. Pillow Fights

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A belated birthday drabble for @honorthedeadbyfighting!!

“That’s my pillow!”

The words shake him awake, as much as sleep clings to him, attempting to drag him back to the peaceful abyss where his soft rest wasn’t being tugged from beneath his head. He hadn’t long been asleep based on the lingering itch behind his eyelids, but Felicity seemed to determined to reclaim the pillow he’d fallen asleep on.

He pushed up onto his elbow, rubbing his eyes. “What?”

“Mine!” she declared, swiping the abandoned pillow from beneath him and shoving another one in it’s place.

“It’s on my side of the bed,” he muttered, his face curling into a frown.

“And it shouldn’t be,” she huffed. “Yours has grooves in it, I can’t get comfortable. I must have switched them when I was changing the sheets.”

He still wasn’t entirely sure he understood what was happening, but he slumped back down onto the new pillow, trying to get as comfortable as he had been a few moments ago.  However, to a stroke of luck he found himself significantly more at ease. The sheets were warmer now that he had been there or some time, the duvet taut on one side where Felicity had pulled it around her to get comfortable. It was a comfort he’d never sank into before, but now, in their new home in Ivy Town, their shared bed, shared sheets, and much disputed-over pillows were a sanctuary.

He slid his arm around her waist as soon as she settled, pulling her towards him until her head was resting beside his and they were mere inches apart. He hadn’t spent a night without her in his arms for some months now, and it wasn’t something he planned to be depriving himself of in any such future now that he knew how to experience. Nights with the love of his life far outweighed any such pleasures he’d had before, and when he considered the possibility of spending the rest of his life with this woman, with his mother’s ring carefully hidden away, well, it was–

“What are you smiling about?”

He didn’t realise he had been until her sleep-filled mumble reached him. His arm trailed up her spine, over her shoulder until he could bury his fingers in her hair.  “Pillow smells like you,” he noted, turning into it as he brushed his nose through the fabric she had clearly tossed and turned over for a while before returning it to him.

“You’re such a sap,” she huffed at him, but when he returned his eyes to hers he saw she was smiling.

“C’mere,” he replied, entwining his hands around her bare waist and pulling her into his chest. “You don’t need a pillow.”


	104. Bad Timing

She isn’t going to wait for him forever, he knows that. The world isn’t going to wait for him to get his act together, and there’s only so much he can blame on timing.

Because really, the timing is as perfect as she is. He can’t be with her when he has this campaign which could bring her harm, but he knows that if he hadn’t had this crusade on his shoulders, he’d never have ended up in her office with a bullet-ridden laptop and a smile that felt like it was sending cracks in every wall he’d ever placed around himself.

He wants to believe that the universe chose for them to meet in that moment, just as it had chosen for him to catch a glimpse of her years before, and he wants to believe that she has come to his life for a reason.

But what reason is there for him to deserve something as precious and so fervently alive as Felicity Smoak?

He likes her. He knows that he likes her and that it’s something more undefinable than a teenage affliction of ‘like’. He knows that he’s wasting his time in thinking that she deserves better because he knows all too well that she’s pining after him in her own way, the same way he is for her. They aren’t even bouncing off one another, they’re circling, always orbiting one another as they ascertain where their center is.

And once he’s tasted her lips, he’s addicted.

The candle of his affections for her becomes a roaring flame, fast and overwhelming. What he feels for her isn’t the adoration that warms his heart, but the passion that burns down his entire being. He knows from the moment has her lips on his that he’s never going to be able to stop feeling this - this…this longing, this thrill, this sense of home - for as long as he lives.

When she steps back from him, he feels a cage settle over him. He has released her, but he’s never felt as trapped as he has when he realizes that she has taken a step back from him with every fiber of his heart in her possession.

He exists purely for her now, and she doesn’t even realize it.

“Say you never loved me-”

As if he could. As if he could state such a blasphemy to insinuate that he has never loved her, because in his own way he has always loved her. The problem is that Oliver Queen cannot love in the manner she deserves. He’ll never send her roses, or wake her with coffee in the mornings, or spend hours lavishing attention on every inch of her form. He’ll never bend to her on one knee, or whisper vows like secrets, or shed tears for their firstborn screaming in his arms.

Because these are things that he does not deserve. She is not something he deserves.

He knows that if he loves her up close, he will lose her, either to tragedy or to age. He isn’t yet sure if it’s better to lose her to an ill-fated crusade, or after he has had fifty years to love and treasure her. He isn’t sure if he knows how to let her go before allowing himself to love her, but he knows that he couldn’t stand to lose her after a lifetime at her side.

“Don’t ask me to say that I don’t love you.”

Because he does.

He loves her. He wants his life to be determined only by the happiness he can grant her. He knows that timing has chosen for her to come into his life at this moment, but he can’t take the risk that she has been given to him as a fleeting shelter in the carnage of his operation.

He has to blame timing, because the only alternative is blame a fate that he cannot trust. That he was made to love her. That the universe believes him capable of bringing happiness to this perfect creature who wants to love him.

Loving him will destroy her.

He’s more afraid of her realizing that than he is for her destruction.


	105. Out of the Dark

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ashroleplays said: Can I bother you for an Olicity prompt? Inspired from stephen’s tweet (It’s not a season of Arrow until I’m shirtless on an exam table fighting for my life.) 
> 
> A/N: My take on the ending for this week’s episode.

He sees red when he wakes.

It’s not overpowering, not all he sees, he hasn’t woken to a crimson nightmare, but it’s the first thing he focuses on when his eyes flicker. Blood. There’s a shimmer to it that’s not familiar, but under the harsh lighting above him it’s hard to take in anything. The understanding flickers over him.

Well, not so much the understanding as the pain.

The moment he feels it, it all slams into him like a freight train. Pain. Throbbing. Agony. Screaming. No, that one doesn’t belong to him. He didn’t scream. It hurt, oh how it hurt, an arrow piercing through his side that drew an agonising sound from him, but the scream wasn’t his.

Felicity.

Her name is on his lips the moment soft hands cradle his cheeks. The burn from his wound spreads up to his face, because her touch is acidic when he’s been deprived of it for so many weeks. But now that he can feel her again, it’s burning through the wall that’s stood between them, and he needs it.

“Oliver…don’t move, you have to stay still, you have to–”

Crying. She’s been crying. He can see it now she blocks out that light from above. She leans over him with tear stained cheeks and her hair is dishevelled. It looked so perfect before but now she appears as though she’s been stretched too far, worn too thin. What was once a sparkling white is now doused in scarlet.

Blood. She’s covered in it. His blood.

That’s what he’d noticed when he first woke. He remembers it now - the dummy wedding, that beautiful dress, Cupid’s arrival, pushing Felicity out of her arrow’s path and…pain. He remembers the pain. Remembers Felicity as the last thing he saw before everything went black, and he’s back from the dead again.

“Felicity…” he whispers, his voice hoarse as one hand comes up to close over hers, securing her against him for just a moment. Because he doesn’t know how long he has this contact for and it’s nice.

“You’re going to be okay,” she tells him, just a whisper.

She hasn’t changed out of the dress. That’s what he was seeing. The perfect white fabric is soaked in his spilled blood along her left side, where she’d tried to stall the bleeding as he slipped away. She hasn’t changed. She’s been sat at his side in a wedding dress since the darkness pulled him away. The ring she once work with permanence is still on her finger. Her makeup is blemished beneath her eyes, which are red rimmed.

She’s cried at his side.

“Felicity,” he repeats, with no other words to follow. Because what can he say out loud? I love you? Don’t go? Stay with me? I love you?

He’s not sure if he can say them right now.

A choked sound spills out past her lips, and her head bows. “Oliver,” she sighs, her voice hitching. “I…I didn’t think you were going to… “

“M’okay,” he mutters, ignoring the angry throbbing in his side in favour of how her hair feels brushing against his forehead.

She bites her lip, shaking her head. “No, you… your heart stop—” she breaks off and shuts her eyes so tightly it makes his chest ache. His heart had stopped?

“Felicity…” he starts again, trying to pull her back to him. She doesn’t fight him. He’s glad.

“I don’t even know how you’re alive right now,” she mumbles, swallowing thickly as he boldly yet awkwardly lifts one arm around her shoulders, pulling her down against him. He’s relieved she’s not on the side of his injury because she ends up half laying across him, dipping her head into the space beside his.

“I thought of you,” he murmurs back, turning to brush his lips over her temple. He’s not sure he’ll get this chance in the near future, but for now they’re in tarnished wedding attire, and the ring is back in place.

Right where it belongs.

When three words choke past her lips, he clings to them, clings to her. When she follows him home, under the guise of helping him, he doesn’t question when she stays, doesn’t comment on how it looks to watch her change out of her bloodstained gown and into her pyjamas.

Three days later, when she’s changing the dressing on his side, he does question why she’s still wearing the ring.

She doesn’t answer.

But she smiles.


	106. Fever

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anonymous said: could you write a one shot where felicity isn’t feeling well and doesn’t want oliver to know, but ultimately he ends up taking care of her?

“Felicity?” **  
**

She inhales sharply as his voice startles her thoughts. Not that she can remember what she was thinking, of course, just that she was definitely thinking about something that must have been important… only her mind is empty save for the dull throb in the back of her skull. “Hmm?”

“I asked you if you wanted any more wine?” Oliver asks, gesturing with the bottle from where he stands in the kitchen.

She shakes her head. “No, thank you. I think I’ve had enough.”

He glances over her with a frown, placing the bottle down without refilling his own glass as he came over to her side. “You’ve barely even touched that glass…”

“Hmm?”

“Or your food…Felicity…” She hears his voice shift from concern to sheer worry, and his hand brushes over her shoulder.

“I’m okay,” she murmurs, closing her eyes as his fingers brush into her hair and momentarily ease the ache in the back of her neck. “I’m just tired.”

“Long day?” He asks.

“So long,” she sighs. “I’m just…exhausted.”

Oliver’s hand knead at the muscles at the base of her neck, drawing a small moan from her as a knot of tension dissipates under his touch. She leans back into him, feeling his arm snake around her front as she just…takes a moment. “Why don’t you go take a bath and get an early night?” Oliver suggests, his voice soft.

Her eyes close as she sinks more fully into his arms. “Is it wrong that I might skip the bath?”

“Is it wrong that I want to join you for an early night?” He counters.

“Mmm, not really,” she hums.

His lips touch to the top of her head as he steps back, holding out a hand to help her up. “Go on. I’ll clean up here and then come join you.”

–

His hand shakes her shoulder in a way that tears her from sleep, and sleep had been so good - sleep is always good, she’s a big advocate for sleep - but she doesn’t want to wake up when the bed is so comfortable and warm, so warm, in fact, everything is incredibly warm, almost too warm–

“Hey…”

“Mmm?” she blinks towards him, finally opening her eyes to discover they don’t want to open all that well, or focus on the blurred form of Oliver knelt at the side of the bed.

“Your alarm went off three times already, time to get up,” he explains.

Right. Alarm. Work. “Kay,” she mumbles, forcing herself up so she can get out of bed. It doesn’t go that well, based on how the entire world seems to shift and Oliver’s suddenly holding her upright as if she’d stumbled.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” He asks, placing a hand on her cheek.

“Yeah, I’m alright.” God, even she doesn’t think she sounds convincing.

“You’re really pale-”

“There’s a cold going around the office, I probably caught it off Gerry…”

“Felicity…”

His voice with that much concern is something that makes her stomach twist. It’s not just the nausea, but she knows that she’s probably sick and that’s not something he can help with. Oliver knowing that he can’t take care of her pain is an Oliver that’s helpless, and she remembers from the Great Ear Infection of the summer road trip that it’s rather adorable how he hovers without being able to do anything.

She allows herself to lean into his hand for just a moment before she takes a breath and manages to steady her heaving her unsteady form for a moment. “I know you’re going to suggest staying home, but I can’t…besides, I’m fine.”

He doesn’t look convinced. She doesn’t feel convinced.

“Just promise me that you’ll-”

“-call if I need anything. I know,” she nods, and she places a kiss in his palm for his assurance.

“Okay, well I’ll go make you some coffee,” he settles, easing up from the side of the bed as she makes her way into the shower.

–

“Felicity?”

“In here.”

There’s no denying it now, not when he’s come home to find the scattering of items through the loft that lead to the bedroom. When she left work earlier she’d let her jacket fall off the back of the couch, left her shoes at the bottom of the stairs, pulled her hair tie out halfway along the hall and as he’s now probably discovered, stepped outside her clothes in varying places before she fell into bed.  

“What are you doing?” Oliver asks the pile of duvets she’s hidden beneath, pulling the top layer back to expose her pale, sickly features.

“You’re right,” she huffs, her voice scratchy. “I’m sick.”

He brushes his hand over her forehead, and everything’s so warm that the cool touch of his fingers is blissful. She presses against them, capturing his hand and bringing it to the back of her neck where she feels the burning strongest. “Why didn’t you call me? I’d have come home sooner,” he murmurs.

“It’s just the flu,” she disregards. Half the office has had it, and she was foolish to believe that staying in her office would protect her from the mass of germs that was taking down her workforce. “Besides, you were busy…”

“Well, I’m here now,” he tells her, smoothing back her messy ponytail with a kiss against her forehead. She’s sure it’s to check her temperature again, but it feels nice so she doesn’t care. “Do you need anything?”

She shakes her head, gesturing out to the side. “No, I’m good. I’ve got water, half a pharmacy and trashy TV,” she tells him, showing her well-stocked bedside table with everything she needs to hide out the next week.

“I guess my back rub isn’t needed then…” he teased her lightly, getting up from the bed slowly.

“No, wait, come back…”

—

Burning. Everything is burning. Everything hurts and aches and she wants to claw through to her skin until she can rub at her bones because they are screaming in agony. It’s as if her body is being stretched and twisted beneath her flesh and she can’t stop it. Her stomach aches, and all she has is the sensation of not being able to breath, and the sound of Oliver’s voice in her ear.

“Felicity? Felicity, hon, I need you to listen to me. The fever’s still going up, and you’ve been sick again. I called the doctor and he said we need to go to the emergency room, so I’m going to carry you down to the car, okay?”

–

The next time she wakes, the walls are white and the bed isn’t her own. It takes her a few moments to realise that she’s not in the sanctuary of her own duvet fort that she’d equipped for all flu purposes. Everything leading to here is fuzzy, but she remembers feeling more than horrible and Oliver’s voice not as calm as he probably wanted it to be.

“Oliver?”

He’s sat at her side, blinking awake just as she is and leaning over her. “Hey, welcome back. How are you feeling?”

“Crappy,” she murmurs.

He smiles slightly, sighing as he leans down to kiss her forehead. “I’m not surprised.”

“Where are we?”

“Hospital,” he tells her. “You’ve had a crazy night.”

She swallows, her throat feeling shredding as she shuts her eyes again. “My head’s killing me…”

“You had one of the highest fevers the admitting nurse ever saw. I think we can mark this flu down as officially evil,” he tells her, and though she’s not looking at him when he speaks, she knows that he’s not allowing the light tone to reach his eyes.

“When can we go home?”

“Couple of hours,” he tells her. “They want to make sure you’re past the worst.”

Her eyes open again at that, taking in the haggard expression on his face. “You look tired,” she noted.

He doesn’t try to deny it, dragging his hand over his face. “It’s been a long night.”

“C’mere,” she tugs on his hand, trying to pull him onto the bed beside her.

He stills his arm, her attempt no match for his strength. “You need to be resting,” he tells her.

“So do you. I want a hug,” she grumbles.

Oliver stops fighting her, maneuvering himself so he’s curled behind her. It’s not ideal, but it’s far more comfortable than lying there alone, and she feels much better when his arm wraps around her stomach and she can feel his breath against the back of her neck, which is now freezing in comparison to the heat it had held yesterday.

“Better?” he asks her, dropping a kiss onto her shoulder.

“Yeah,” she hums.

“Get some sleep, hon. I’ll wake you when we can go home.”


	107. When I Don't Have You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anonymous said: 1st, I <3 you so much! 2nd, if you had time for this prompt that won’t leave me alone after reading a couple of your panic attack stories, I’d love you forever. Oliver having his first panic attack (either at the loft or lair) since Felicity left him. He’s alone this time without her to guide him through it and it doesn’t end well at all. He starts having them more and more frequently again until one day Felicity and the rest of the team walk in on him having his worst one yet.

His chest tightens first. It’s always the same. He feels one breath that doesn’t come as easily as the one before, and that sends a bolt of fear down his spine. He knows an attack is imminent, and he has to get to a safe place to ride it out. He almost drops his bow when the tremors start, almost shuts down when his ears rush with sound that has no source and he can no longer hear his team calling him through the comms unit in his ear.

The first one without her was horrible. It started in the middle of the night the day she left, when he walked into the bedroom and realised that she really wasn’t coming back. He had nowhere safe to go, no one he could call, and he wasn’t sure how many hours he trembled in the corner when the thunderstorm hit and he curled into himself.

This won’t be any kinder.

He retreats back to the loft, back to the corner of the closet that he buries himself in when his head is no longer in control, and he ignores the press of one of her discarded heels that digs into his side when he does. He knows they must track him there, to their home, because the stampede of feet on the stairs almost drowns him until he’s gasping for air and clamping his hands around his head.

“Found him. He’s in here.”

“Oliver…Oh god, _Oliver_?”

“Stay back,” he chokes, because he knows that acknowledgement in her tone and it’s not going to end well. It’s going to end in her touching him and he’s not sure he can handle that at the moment.

“John, give us some space-”

“Felicity, if he could-”

“He’s not going to hurt me.”

He wishes that were true.

—

“Hey, can I sit down?”

_You can’t. You shouldn’t be here. You went away. You said you’d be back when you were ready but it’s been weeks and I’m still here alone. I’m so alone without you. You shouldn’t be here. I’m not good for you. I only hurt you._

“Okay, okay, I’ll stay here.”

_It’s too close. I can smell your perfume here. I haven’t smelt it in weeks. Not since you left. You’re too close. Too close when you’re so far away afterwards. No, no, no, don’t move closer. I can feel how warm you are. I can’t breathe. You’re too close. I won’t survive you leaving again._

“Will you hold my hand?”

_I can’t. I can’t do it because I’ll have to let it go. It hasn’t gone my ring on it anymore. It was supposed to stay there with another ring, one that matched mine. Don’t ever want to let go. Wait, why am I… your hands are so soft. How could I have ever let them go? I don’t think I can let them go again._

“That’s it…that’s better, isn’t it?”

_No. Yes. No. Yes. Yes, it’s better. You make everything better. Living was so much easier when I was with you. Everything was easier. I didn’t want to hate myself when I was with you. All I wanted to do was love you. It’s still all I want to do. I want to sit here and hold your hand for the rest of our lives._

“This isn’t the first one that’s been bad, is it?”

_No. Nothing’s good anymore. Everything is darkness. I don’t want to eat. I can’t sleep. I can’t do this anymore, Felicity. I can’t be a man like this. You gave me everything I am. I grew because of you. I don’t know how to stand without you at my side._

“It’s okay, we’ve got through these before, haven’t we?”

_Only in your arms. Only with your soft voice and your hands and your hair and your lips and you. Just you. You’re my anchor. My harbour. I’m just lost in the storm without you._

“Close your eyes…”

_No. No more darkness. I have enough darkness already. I need to keep my eyes open. I can see the gold of your hair, the red of your dress, the pink of your lips. I need colour. I can’t stand the darkness._

“It’s okay, just trust me.”

_Trust you. I can trust you. I always trust you. I should have trusted you more. Maybe we wouldn’t be here if I had. It’s so hard to trust, do you see that? Whenever I trust people they hurt me. They let me down. They betray me. I’ve done that to you now. Can’t you see that it hurts me?_

“That’s it…okay, squeeze my hand.”

_I love your hands. Did I ever tell you that? So small, but I feel so safe in these hands. These were hands I wanted to hold on my wedding day, hands I wanted to cradle my children, hands I wanted to watch wrinkle and age along with our faces._

“I know there are bad things happening your mind right now, but you’re safe here, and you’re not alone. So we’re just going to sit here until it starts to feel a little easier, okay?”

_Can we sit here forever? I’d sit here forever with you._

_—_

“Felicity…” he murmurs, rolling his head slightly until he can see where she’s smiling at him. This time she does touch his face, and he leans into her palm.

“Hey, welcome back.”

“I’m sor-”

“Don’t apologise,” she cuts over him, her voice soft as her thumb strokes over his cheekbone. “It’s okay.”

“It’s not-”

“It’s not okay, I know,” she sighs slightly, watching the way his eyes flicker closed when her fingertip move to the back of his neck. “How long have they been bad?”

He considers lying to her for a moment because he can see the guilt flicker in her eyes, the pity that she may have caused this and he doesn’t want that for her. But she had made a point that he needed to learn to lean on people, so he sags his shoulders, resting more of his weight against her.

“Since we…”

He can’t finish the sentence, but the intent is clear. Her hand stills for a moment on his neck and he worries she’ll move away, but she doesn’t. She continues the gentle movement that has his heartrate starting to still, and the itch in his chest beginning to fade.

“Oliver, I’m taking some time to clear my head, but I have not stopped loving you, you know that, don’t you?” She whispers after a short silence between them.

_No. Yes. Maybe._

“Yeah,” he breathes out, flickering his eyes open just to see goosebumps travel up her wrist where his breath hit.

“So if you need me, if I can stop this from hurting you, I need you to give me a signal so I can clear the room and we can take care of this,” she offers, and he finds himself surrendering to her all over again.

“Okay.”

—

Four weeks later, he bursts into the lair with a tightness in his chest that signals a warning sign. His hands are flickering, his fingers tapping together with a nervous energy that has become their signal, and a flare of panic surges through him when he sees that Felicity is not alone at her post. Thea is with her, and it takes everything in his concentration to get the words out that he needs.

“Thea, can you give us a few minutes?”

She doesn’t even raise her eyes from the computer screen. “I’m right in the -”

“Now, please,” he urges, looking at Felicity directly. “We need a moment alone.”

“Alright,” Thea huffs, taking her work elsewhere.

The moment she’s out of sight, Felicity moves forward, guiding him into Thea’s vacated chair and rolling her own in front of it. The ease with which she cares for him makes his heart swell, and he knows that’s not the panic talking. “Felicity…” he chokes out, reaching for her.

“It’s okay,” she assures him, holding her palm open to him. “Take my hand, let’s just breathe through it, okay?”

His hands fall into hers, tightening around her slender digits as he tries to take a steady breath and fails. “Can you–?”

“What do you need?” She asks softly.

“Voice,” he struggles out.

Despite the raging fear within him, she is steady before him. Rather than concern, she looks at him with a wash of peace. Her voice is his way home, they’ve established that before. Sometimes it’s touch that calms him, but it’s the sound of her gentle tone that really settles him.

“Remember Bali?” She asks him softly, stroking her thumbs over his knuckles. “I’ve been thinking a lot about Bali lately. I’ve been thinking that maybe I want to go back,” she explains quietly.

“Yeah,” he nods, biting down on his lip as he tries to focus on whether or not she’s hinting at something, or just trying to comfort him.

He gets his answer when she flashes him a smile. “Wanna come with me?”

“I’d go anywhere with you,” he replies.

His chest is tight. His heart is racing. Every part of him aches and twists in ways that feel unnatural. But as long as he has her, he knows he’ll get through it.


	108. Making Time

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> myfuturequeen said:Yay! Your prompts are open again. Loved “Shut Up”! Was wondering if you could write something similar, where Oliver is super busy with his campaign and Felicity is eager to help but he keeps telling her, no babe I’ve got this, bcz there’s a part of him that just really wants to feel like he’s not dependent on her for everything (money, tech, the mission, etc) but Felicity feels just a little bit hurt and left out. Maybe they talk later and kiss and have hot make up sex? LOL #Immaperv THX!

“Is that spaghetti I smell?”

Oliver had been so lost in his thoughts that he hadn’t heard her slip into the loft until he heard her voice calling through to him. He didn’t answer immediately, instead slipping his eyes closed at the familiarity of her soft tones, letting it wash over him as he inhaled. A smile graced his lips, and he turned to watch her enter the kitchen before she was behind him, slipping her arms around his waist.

“Yeah, I wanted to go with someone more elaborate, but I got home later than I planned…” he explained, still stirring the sauce before him.

“This is earlier than you’ve been home in weeks…” she pointed out, propping her chin against his shoulder. Sometimes, if she weren’t wearing her heels, she’d only come up to the the curve where his spine met his shoulder muscles.

He closed his eyes again, letting out a quiet sigh. “I know, I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay,” she murmured, tapping her hand against his stomach lightly. “We’ve both been rushed off our feet.”

“I know, but I do owe you an apology,” he murmured.

He felt her draw in a breath against him, expanding her chest against his spine. “Oliver, if this is about this morning…”

“It is. But not just this morning.”

“You don’t have to-”

He cut her off, placing his hand over hers. “Please, let me do this?” He asked quietly.

She was silent at first, before the familiar pressure of her lips touching to his skin made his stomach stir. “Okay.”

He cleared his throat, giving her as much of a smile as he could as he glanced over his shoulder and kissed her forehead. “Get those shoes off and go get comfortable. Dinner’s almost ready.”

Her eyebrow arched. “I have to ditch the shoes for this apology?”

“You said the blue ones pinch your feet,” he shrugged lightly.

“Okay, I’ll be down in a second.”

—

Felicity arrived back downstairs in her pyjamas, which didn’t surprise him. The sight of coffee mugs with cartoon faces littered the fabric that covered her legs, but her upper half was covered by one of his hoodies that he’d left on the bed instead of putting away earlier in a half-attempt at doing the laundry. She’d released her hair from the tight ponytail, the blonde locks curling around her shoulders as she sat down at the table just as he was serving up their meal.

“Ah, this looks amazing,” she sighed, reaching for a fork.

“It’s just spaghetti,” he pointed out as he sat down opposite her.

“It’s the first hot meal I’ve had in…” her eyes winced and she shook her head. “…never mind.”

He caught her slip and frowned. “You’ve not been eating when I’ve been home late?” He asked.

“I’ve been eating,” she justified. “I’ve just not been cooking.”

He put his fork down, the chink against the china accompanied by a sigh.“Felicity…”

“It’s fine, Oliver.”

“I owe you an explanation,” he told her.

She looked like she was going to fight him on it at first, but he could see her rethink it and nod instead. “Okay.”

“I know you’ve offered to help with the campaign a few times and I’ve turned you down. I didn’t do it to push you away,” he explained.

“Then why?” She asked.

He glanced around the home he’d spend such little time in for the last few weeks, and reached over to place his hand over hers. “Everything I have is thanks to you…our home, our vacations…even my campaign,” he gestured, shaking his head. “Your money funds everything, and I don’t want you to think I’m freeloading-”

“Oliver-”

He continued on, not allowing her to interrupt. “Even when I had Queen Consolidated… I never achieved anything for myself. It was always someone else’s money, someone else’s hard work… and then I was there again, accepting your money, your hard work…”

She gave him a smile, placing her fork down and closing her hand over their joined ones. “I was happy to give it, Oliver. We’re a team.”

“I know, and I’m so grateful for that,” he acknowledged with a squeeze of her digits. “I just thought it was time that I brought something to the table.”

“I understand.”

“Do you?”

She nodded with a small shrug, and he felt her feet twin with his beneath the table. “I won’t lie and say I haven’t missed you the last few weeks, but I’m glad it’s for a good reason.”

Oliver released a sigh of relief. “If it’s any consolation, I’ve hated being away from you too.”

At that, she got up from her seat, moving around the table until he was pushing his seat out to meet her intentions pulling her down into his lap. Her legs hooked over his as she straddled his thighs, her arms sneaking around his neck. “So if you’re here now, does that mean I have you for the night?” She asked suggestively.

“You have me for the whole weekend,” he corrected her with a smile.

Her eyebrows shot up in surprise. “How did you get a weekend off?”

“I gave Alex and Thea my blessing. I think they’re going away for the weekend,” he hinted.

“Maybe we should do that,” she mused lightly.

“No,” he decided, as he leaned his head down and took the opportunity to brush kisses along her shoulder.

She chuckled lightly, tilting her head to expose more skin for his attention. “No?”

“The only place I want to be is right here, with you,” he whispered.

The rumble of his voice made her shift in his lap, her intentions all too clear as she bit her lip. “Good, because there’s something else I’ve been missing…”

The rock of her hips tore a gasp from him. “Oh…”

“Yeah…” she murmured.

Oliver swallowed thickly. “But the dinner…”

“Spaghetti can be reheated, stop being too proud to use the microwave,” she told him, climbing out of his lap.

“But-” he started, glancing between her and the dinner he’d made for them.

She stood her ground, holding out her hand to him. “Come make love to your fiance.”

He was out of his seat in an instant, blowing out the candle he’d placed between their plates. When he rose, he bypassed her extended hand in preference of throwing her over his shoulder, drawing a giggled squeal from her.

“Yes, dear.”


	109. See You Again

When she was eleven years old, Felicity loved a boy she could never have.

His name was Joshua. His father worked at the bar with her mother, and they would do their homework together there after school before the evening rush began. They spent five days a week together, and she was very certain that she wanted to marry him and have his babies. Well, maybe not too many babies, but definitely one.

But he liked Danielle Stoppard, like all the boys did, and she heard one day that he had kissed her behind the old lockers on the edge of the sports field. He went to a different high school and she never saw him again.

—

When she was fourteen years old, Felicity loved a boy she could never have.

Daniel was her first kiss - her first real kiss - and it was easy for them to be alone in her room because her mother worked all the time. He was a year older than her, but she’d been moved up in school already so they were in the same class. He sat on her bed, held her hand, and it wasn’t just a kiss, it was a kiss that made her toes curl and her stomach flutter.

But his hand had tried to go underneath her shirt and she wasn’t ready for that. She felt far too young for that, considering there were still stuffed animals behind them on her bed, so she remembered what her mother had told her to do in those situations and she had said no, pushed him away and made it clear she didn’t want that to happen, and she never saw him again.

—

When she was eighteen years old, Felicity loved a boy she could never have.

His name was Cooper, and he was in the college programme she was in, and he was every part the mysterious bad boy she’d always wanted. She gave him her virginity in the single bed of his dorm when his roommate had gone to a LAN party and it wasn’t as terrible as other girls had told her it would be. He was good to her, made her laugh, made her smile. Made her happy.

But one day he would go to jail for her, would die for his secrets. And she would never see him again.

—

When she was twenty-five years old, Felicity loves a boy she could never have.

Oliver is her grand, all-inspiring, end-of-all-being love, she knows that. The years haven’t been kind to them, but her feelings haven’t changed, and she knows after their recent night together that his haven’t either. It’s why she can’t leave him behind in that awful place, why she can’t let this League consume the parts of his soul he still holds dear, and she can’t let him stay there.

But all that she loves him, she cannot force him to love her.

She can’t make him choose her.

She can’t make him come home when his voice deepens and tells her he’s staying behind.

Love is not always enough.

And she knows if she leaves now, she will never see him again.


	110. The Breakdown

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anonymous said: Anything pregnancy related. Accidental pregnancy after Oliver sent William away. Felicity is scared of what his reaction will be.
> 
> Anonymous said: Longer drabble request ??? :) AU where Felicity can walk, but canon to the rest of the season, she finds out she’s pregnant just when Oliver’s big William lie comes out. please write this.

Oliver expected a lot of things when he arrived home, but this, wasn’t one of them.

He went for a walk to clear his head after sending the video to Samantha’s email address, the weight of sending his son away weighing heavily on his shoulders. Felicity had arrived home just after but he hadn’t been able to face her in that moment. He’d lied to her, hurt her, and he’d been out the door before she could even speak. He was certain she noticed the anguish on his face.

But when he arrived back, she was sat at the dining table with two items in front of her. Her engagement ring, and a pregnancy test.

“We need to talk,” she announced quietly.

His first reaction was panic, the kind of blinding panic that rooted him to the spot. Actions of dropping his keys in the bowl and shrugging off his jacket were forgotten in favor of gravitating towards her.

He fell into the seat opposite, feeling his throat dry up as his eyes fell first on the discarded engagement ring. He should have seen that coming, giving the events of the last few days, the lies he’d told her and the lack of faith he’d demonstrated in their relationship. But the pregnancy test? That was an addition he hadn’t see coming.

“Felicity…” he breathed, his voice shuddering as his eyes locked onto the little plus sign that could dictate their entire future.

“I was going to give you your ring back,” she announced, and he knew from the shake in her tone that she’d been crying, but her finger tapped the surface just in front of the test. “But _this_ changes things.”

He swallowed. “Yeah, it does.”

“I need to know if this sends us away,” she asked him softly.

His eyes raised to hers instantly. “Away?”

“You sent William away, didn’t you?” she guessed, and he just dipped his head. “I need to know, Oliver. Is this something else that you’re going to push me away for?”

“No,” he whispered, shaking his head. “I’d _never_ …not you.”

Her breath hitched. “We have a lot to figure out,” she reminded him, her fingers drifting towards her ring.

“Please,” he murmured. “ _Don’t_ … “

“I don’t want this to break us,” she agreed gently. “But this can’t keep happening over and over again, Oliver.”

“It won’t,” he shook his head. “Just, please…”

“Because I don’t want to do this alone.”

He took her hand then, consequences be damned. “No, we do this together.” She went to speak, but he interrupted with a shake of his head. “Felicity…our baby…we do this together, I promise.”


	111. Come Home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anonymous said: What if you did a prompt that after they break up they have to go under cover together and act as if they are married and madly in love and they’re supposed to have separate beds but instead it’s a double and they have to share and make up at the end or something?

“This is _ridiculous_.” **  
**

“Felicity-”

“ _Why_ is this so awkward?”

Oliver closed his eyes, the fact that his back was turned to her not quite enough space between them in that moment. Her frustration wasn’t unwarranted, but things were far more complicated than just being awkward by any means of the imagination.

“I think that’s pretty obvious.”

They were inches away in a hotel bed, her lying on her back, and him on his side facing away from her. They were surrounded by candles they hadn’t lit, matching bathrobes, and enough flowers to make Saint Valentine himself nauseated. They were on a couples therapy weekend, with closely scheduled activities and using it to try and create themselves as targets for whichever madman was murdering couples.

It shouldn’t be awkward, but it was, because she’d walked out on him and left her ring behind six weeks ago and he hadn’t been this close to her since.

“No, it isn’t. We love each other. We’re just…taking time. Being next to each other shouldn’t be so awkward,” she insisted.

He screwed up his eyes, wishing that she would stop talking about how awkward things were so that he could attempt to get some sleep and not focus on the sound of her breathing, or the warmth radiating from her, or what every single inch of him wanted to do with her that close that would only make the situation.

“Well, it is awkward,” he insisted in the darkness of the room.

“But why-”

“It’s awkward because I want to hold you, but I _can’t_!” He snapped, his voice sharper than he intended it to be. But he was tired. He was exhausted from everyone looking at him like he was a sad puppy, drained from learning to live a life that wasn’t shared with her, and just bone-deep _tired_ in all manners of speaking.

“Oliver-”

Her voice was soft, far too soft for what he was able to cope with when she was that close, so he cut her off before she could say any more. “Just…let’s get some sleep, okay?”

“Okay,” she whispered.

Things were silent for a few minutes, and he was grateful for the reprieve from the awkward discussion. He focused on the sound of her breathing, hoping he could at least allow himself the dangerous fascination of her breathing to lull him to sleep, but he wasn’t prepared for a sharp inhale disrupting him, as if her steady breath had hitched.

“Felicity…”

“I _miss_ you,” she whispered, and that was a sound he hadn’t been prepared for. She was crying.

She’d been very good at playing the part of a doting fiance today, so much so that it had only made it harder for him to remember that she wasn’t really with him. He hadn’t wanted to do things this way, but when John had pointed out the opportunity she had almost jumped at it, insisting that a high-profile couple such as themselves would be an easy target and the perfect choice. She was a natural actress, and the job seemed not to affect her at all.

Except it had. It was tearing her apart as much as it was torturing him.

“We shouldn’t-” he started, but her breath hitched again, her voice small.

“Don’t you miss me?”

“You know that I do,” he whispered, squeezing his eyes closed as he tried to keep the cracks in his heart from expanding at the sound of her tears. “I never wanted you to go.”

“I didn’t want to go,” she explained. “I just…I needed to breathe.”

“That’s just the thing,” he replied, sucking in a harsh breath before exhaling with a humourless laugh. “I _can’t_ breathe without you.”

“Oliver…”

He felt her hand press against his back before it fisted in the shirt he only wore as an extra boundary between them. “We shouldn’t do this, we’re on a mission-”

“Please, look at me,” she whispers.

He furrowed his brow, shaking his head without even attempting to turn. In fact, he clenched his hands into the sheet to ensure that he didn’t turn. “I don’t trust myself, Felicity.”

This time, her voice was filled with frustration again “Would it kill you to look at me for two seconds?”

“ _Yes_!” He burst out, his body jerking beneath her touch. “Because if I look at you, I’m going to want to hold you, and if I hold you, I’m not going to be able to let you go. So, I…can’t,” he finished, resigning himself with a sigh at the end.

And then she moved. First he felt the sheet move, then warmth as she wound her arm around his stomach and pressed herself to his back. It wasn’t as warm as it would have been with bare skin, but it was enough to draw a strangled sound from his throat, one of longing and hesitance that he wasn’t sure he could fight back.

“Felicity…” he murmured through gritted teeth.

“I want to come home,” she whispered against his shoulder.

He could feel the fabric against his back cooling, as if her tears were soaking into the material directly from her cheeks. It almost broke him, those words he’d wanted to hear her say for so many weeks now he’d started to think she’d never speak them.

But if this was a momentary lapse, a shred of weakness because he was right beside her, he wouldn’t bear it. If she were to move closer then pull away, it wouldn’t be something he could survive. He’d spent too long with the love of Felicity Smoak in his heart that he knew he wouldn’t survive it being taken from him again.

“Felicity, _please_ …”

“ _Please_ ,” she whispered, her voice breaking.

At that, he broke. He turned so quickly her hand dropped onto the mattress for only a moment because his arms were around her, crushing her against his chest. He wanted to kiss her, wanted to feel her wholly in his arms, but in that moment all he could do was hold her as she clung to him.

One thing they’d learned over their summer together was home was not a building. Home was Bali sand beneath their toes, sitting on the floor of airport lounges, motel rooms with crappy coffee and hands clasped over the center console of the car. Home was kisses behind the ear, fingernails on skin and burned food. Home was one another, and that was harder to walk away from than either of them imagined it would be.

“Come home,” he pleaded, pressing his lips to the top of her head.

Home was together.

And she wanted to come home.


	112. Luxuriance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anonymous said: Can you write a fic (not dialogue) about pregnant olicity? Maybe them telling the team or something

It happens on Sara’s third birthday.

They’ve been enjoying things in their bubble, the one they’ve fallen into since the positive pregnancy test became a permanent fixture in their lives. She’d crept nervously over to him as he served up dinner one night, placed the plastic stick into his hands, and watched that soul-deep look of joy spread over his face. Since then, they’d existed in this closed off space where between bouts of morning sickness there was nothing but smiles and a nervous excitement they weren’t sure how much longer they could contain.

But they kept it to themselves. They’d debated telling select few, but wanted to wait until they had all okay from the doctor before announcing it officially. Unfortunately, the issue of who to tell didn’t leave them with many options. Telling Thea would leave small hints that would trickle through to Digg, which included Lyla, which lead to Curtis, who might hint something at work, then Sara, who might get that ‘I have seen the future’ look they were starting to fear, then Donna, who quite frankly, would have an announcement out before they could finish their sentence.

It was endearing, of course, that they had no doubt about their loved one’s reactions to this next step in their lives, but they wanted that moment. They wanted to enjoy the moment of telling people and since the pregnancy itself was a surprise it would be nice to have some kind of control over one part of it.

But by Sara’s third birthday, it was getting hard to hold it in.

Oliver almost told John when they were watching Felicity sit on the floor with Sara and the other toddlers. Felicity almost told Lyla when she turned down the wine. Thea almost figured it out when Felicity kept rushing to the bathroom. Lyla just had that look about her and Felicity was pretty sure she couldn’t hide it from someone who’d had a baby before.

But after the birthday party was over and cleared away, and Sara was crashed out in bed, it left the small team gathered in the living room, piling into whatever chairs were available. Digg took one side of the couch with Lyla pressed into his side, Thea on the other side with Paul on the arm of the couch and Curtis with his legs outspread on the floor in front of him. Oliver was sank in the armchair with Felicity pulled across his lap, Donna in the neighbouring chair beside them with Lance sat on the arm with his arm around her shoulders.

There’s a peace in the room, a stillness that isn’t even broken with the quiet conversation. This is beyond a team now, it’s a family. It’s a calm. It’s a happiness.

“Let’s do it now,” Oliver whispers, turning his face into Felicity’s hair to hide his words. She lifts her head enough to smile, that same tiny, hopeful smile she’s had for the last five weeks. It’s an agreement, and Oliver doesn’t look away from her immediately, tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ear.

Because this is their last moment as a two.

At the moment, they’re the couple that’s sickeningly sweet in the eyes of their loved ones, the couple who after fifteen months of marriage still hasn’t dissipated in the honeymoon period, and after they announce this, they’ll never be a couple again. They’ll be parents. They’ll be Oliver, Felicity and the baby. Felicity becomes two lives to them all as she has done to him in the quiet evenings at home where his hand curls around her still-flat stomach and waits for the months to come where his child will kick against his palm.

“You tell them,” she whispers back to him, placing a kiss against the inside of his wrist.

“You’re sure?” He checks, but she instantly nods back.

“Tell us what?” Donna asks, having heard their whispered exchange.

They pause as the room’s attention gravitates to them. Felicity gives him a further nod of encouragement as she knots her fingers with his as they settle in her lap. Oliver keeps his smile on her as he speaks.

“Felicity’s pregnant,” he reveals, as the first of the delighted gasps spread through the gathering. “We’re having a baby.”

The room erupts with congratulatory affection. Donna engulfs them both with an embrace that pushes them both closer together, everyone falling over themselves to join in until everyone’s surrounding the armchair they’re gathered in. It’s euphoric, to hear Thea gushing about being an aunt at last as if she’s been waiting fifty years, not fifteen months since telling them they need to make her one. It’s rapturous as Donna declares them “her babies having babies” and they realise that despite all Oliver’s teenage fears, Quentin Lance will end up his child’s grandfather. It’s delirious when Curtis starts mentally creating amazing things for their future child, and Paul starts recommending the highest line pediatricians that he knows.

For Oliver, it’s the moment when Digg places his hand on his shoulder with a quiet “you’re going to love it,” before he embraces Felicity.

Because he’s going to. He knows that next year, for Sara’s fourth birthday, they’ll be attending with their son or their daughter. They’ll be exhausted from being up with the baby, and he can’t wait for that kind of exhaustion. He can’t wait for to feel tired from parenthood, to feel the rush of holding his baby for the first time. He can’t wait to have his hand crushed by Felicity when she’s giving birth, and above all, he’s been dreaming of that moment he gets to crowd into her hospital bed and hold them both in his arms at the same time.

Lyla declares it’s time to open the bottle of champagne they’ve been saving, and as everyone settles with their eager chatter he leans into Felicity, runs his nose across her cheek as it draws him to her lips. “I love you,” he whispers, bringing their joined hands over her stomach because he doesn’t have to hide it anymore.

“We love you too,” she replies quietly, because that’s who she is at the moment. She’s ‘we’ now. Because ‘we’ like to get her up at the crack of dawn to vomit up last night’s dinner and ‘we’ make her pee all the time, and ‘we’ are becoming a family in a way he’s only ever dreamed of.

But it’s not a dream. This is reality now.

When the champagne is handed out, Felicity toasting with a glass that Thea’s already called dibs on, no one’s without a grin. The cheer of “baby Queen” resonates through the room with the clink of glasses, and no matter how many times they say the words, it doesn’t get any less enchanting to know that he’s having a baby with the love of his life.

The bubble doesn’t burst, it just gets bigger. There’s the whole world outside, and the whole of his world inside, and he knows which is more important to him.


	113. Exaltation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anonymous said: There is an episode of friends in which monica buys a pair of boots and later they start aching and chandler carries her a few blocks, I really need to see that with oliver and felicity, probably felicity a little drunk…? Please do your magic.

There was giggling. So much giggling.

It was nice. Her laughter, that is. Well, all of it was nice really. The stop over in this small town in the middle of nowhere was unprecedented, but it had turned into one of the nights that spontaneity was marvelled for.

An emergency mechanic trip had lead to the small bed and breakfast, where they were given an outdated room filled with decorative cat plates and a religious masterpiece in a tacky frame that had them tempted to ask for separate beds on the first night lest their sin drag them away (and after three weeks on the road there had been a lot of sin, so much sinful, delicious, pre-marital _sin_ ).

But the small couple on reception had directed them to the small restaurant a short walk away, and they’d spent the day lazing in bed wishing they had the luxury of room service before stumbling into the shower and dressing for dinner.

A short walk hadn’t quite meant what Felicity was hoping when she slipped on a pair of red heels that perfectly matched the panelling on her dress, and her steps were hitched slightly when they sat down to eat an hour later. After three hours curled into a corner booth with her feet across his lap and two steak dinners and two bottles of wine between them, placing weight back on her feet hadn’t been as painless as she’d hoped.

“We’ll get a cab,” Oliver assured her first, but that seemed almost non-existent in this small town.

She’d insisted they walk, that she’d carry her shoes, but Oliver pulled a face that she couldn’t argue with, but then he’d crouched before her, she’d scrambled on his back.

And now they were half-stumbling down the single track road with her clinging to his back.

“So, the shoes were a bad idea?” Oliver declares, bumping her slightly as his arms loop around the legs she’s wrapped tightly around his torso.

“No, they’re pretty,” she huffs.

They are. He can’t deny that. He certainly wouldn’t deny that because she’s holding them right over his throat with the way she’s wrapped her arms around his shoulders.

“Hmm, tell me that in the morning when your feet are throbbing,” he says, turning his head and plastering a sloppy kiss to the cheek she’s keeping pressed against his.

“All I’m telling you in the morning is to go and get the coffee,” she hums back at him.

He laughs. “Is that so?”

“Yep,” she declares, squeezing her legs around him with a snap of the ‘p’ in her reply. “I think this qualifies you as my official slave now.”

“Oh, this isn’t slave labor,” he argues, wriggling his fingers and finding bare skin on the back of her thighs that must tickle based on the wild, uninhibited giggle that sounds in his ear. Thank God for that day in Coast City he did nothing but explore every inch of her body. “This me racking up Good Boyfriend points.”

“You do have a lot of those,” she agrees thoughtfully, slumping her chin down to his shoulder. “Figured out what you’re gonna trade them in for yet?”

“Depends on what their trade value is,” he shrugs, dislodging her chin so she laughs again and touches lazy lips to his neck. He’s glad the wine is already buzzing through him because it’s dulling his body’s reactions which makes him less likely to walk back fifty feet that that sheltered forest area where he can revisit several ideas of sin, but it’s also lowering his inhibitions so he kinda wants to do it anyway.

“I think you’re good for anything,” she decides lightly.

“Anything?” Oliver questions, performing a twist that has that gleeful laughter returning, and while her legs are still tight around his waist, she’s now pressed against his front with his lips tracing a path down her bared throat.

“Oliver!” She protests through her hilarity.

He lifts his head, his lips splitting into a proud grin when he sees the enhanced flush to her skin that’s more than just the wine now. The hands he previously cradled around her legs are now plastered to the underneath of her thighs, sliding higher ever so slowly.

“Careful,” she teases with a matching grin, pressing her forehead against his. “You’re gonna look real funny carrying me up to the room with a massive boner.”

He chuckles because he can’t not. He’s not laughed this much in years, he’s not felt so carefree, so happy, so bone-deep loved as he has done on these solitary weeks with the woman he loves. The smile on her painted lips is the poster child for delayed gratification, that he can finally learn to be himself - the man loves that loves her.

“You’re right,” he tells her, even as his hands continue their path and grasp at her cheeks. “It is massive.”

This time she doesn’t just burst with laughter she explodes with it. He can feel it quaking through her stomach and vibrate against his chest because yes, he loves making endless love to this woman, and yes, he knows he wants to grow old with her even though he hasn’t figured out how to tell her that yet (he’s pretty sure she’s figured it out but that’s not for tonight), but more than anything, he’s grateful for this - to bring her away from the darkness that has been consuming them both, to not just want his days to end as an old man at her side, but for the rapture of her delight to spread through to him, to give him life, to bring him solace.

He spends the rest of the walk home with his lips against the side of her cheek, listening to her soft giggles as he squeezes his hand against her and teases what he plans to do with her once they get back to their room.

She’s fast asleep as he climbs the stairs to the room. The family in the room beside them are in a similar state, a young couple walking up the stairs ahead of him with half-sleeping seven-year-old sprawled over her father’s shoulder. Oliver catches the father’s eye as they’re simultaneously opening up their room doors.

He’s not sure if it’s Felicity’s infectious amusement that draws the smile from him, or the look of ‘remember we used to be like that’ between the couple as they haul their sleeping daughter upstairs, but he can’t hold in.

“They grow so fast, don’t they?” The father jokes at their mutual positions, shifting his daughter once more before he carries her inside and out of view.

“Yes, we do,” he agrees.


	114. Beneath the Rubble

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Based on the spoiler that Felicity, Donna and Thea are involved in a hostage situation at Palmer Tech: (wrote this a few weeks ago, before the reveal of Bre Larvin)

He watches them file out of the building, the hostages that are made up of his nearest and dearest leaving the company site that his family used to own that now houses the name of another man. He’s helpless on this site of the tape, but after Lance called him with a tremor in his voice to explain that there was a hostage situation, he couldn’t show up as the Arrow. And so he was reduced to a spectator, limited to a line of tape that bears ‘do not cross’ as a warning he doesn’t care to follow.

And the woman he loves remains at gunpoint inside.

Donna leaves first, the cause for Lance’s concern dropping as the vibrant blonde stumbles out on a broken heel with a look of sheer panic on her face. Thea’s right behind her, and Oliver’s heart lifts for a moment when she gives him an assuring nod that she’s unharmed as they’re immediately shown to one of the waiting ambulances for shock treatment.

But then he sees Donna straining to get back to the building, and there’s a severe lack of golden hair in the area as he glances back to the understanding that Felicity has not been released.

And just as he’s pushing back the tape, just as he’s set himself on finding the woman he loves and getting her to safety, an explosion rocks the lower levels.

–

“Mr. Queen-”

“Did you find her?” Oliver asks, his voice hoarse as he holds tight to a wailing Donna. She latched onto his shoulders the moment the paramedics cleared her and since he can’t leave until he sees Felicity’s okay, they stand embracing as emergency services rush around them.

“Sir, you need to come with us.”

“That’s not an answer,” he reminds them.

“Sir, we have…bodies that need to be identified.”

Donna falls silent, as if her entire being has shut down. He feels it too, feels the warmth leave his body and replace itself with a chill of disassociation because the idea of Felicity Smoak not being alive in that moment is unthinkable. They’re asking him to identify bodies because he knows a lot of her workers, and that’s the only explanation he can allow himself as he peels Donna away from him and waits for Thea to guide her away.

He can’t ask her to do it. Just in case. Just in case it’s her, and it’s her daughter in there dead. He’s felt a glimmer now of what it might feel like to lose a child, and he can’t even comprehend what it must be like to identify their body.

But then he’s standing before a sheet covering a woman’s body, and he can see a lock of blonde hair revealed from beneath it and he stumbles.

He can’t do it. He _can’t_ look. Because he can’t feel her, and therefore she can’t be here. He can feel the presence of Felicity Smoak by her mere arrival in a room. He knows when she’s already asleep in bed, when she’s tapping away at her laptop, when she’s hunting in the kitchen for a snack, when she’s engrossed in the television - and he cannot feel her presence here.

He cannot bring himself to find out if that’s because she isn’t in this room, or because her heart is no longer beating.

“Oliver…”

He turns to Diggle, who stands at his side and reaches for the sheet when he can’t, but he stops him with a hand on his wrist. “ _Don’t_ ,” he whispers.

“We have to,” Diggle reminds him.

“What if it’s her?” He murmurs.

“Then we handle it,” he says, his voice airy as if handling it isn’t something they’re capable of doing.

Because handling it would mean going outside and telling a frightened mother that her daughter is dead. Handling it would mean looking at the broken form of the woman he loves, would mean burying the woman he was prepared to marry, and it would mean never getting a chance to prove how much he loves her.

And maybe this is his responsibility. After all he’s done at her side, after all they’ve survived, maybe it’s his purpose to be the one who announces her loss, the one who has to confirm that yes, his crusade has taken her from him.

But the question remains - how does he continue to breathe if she’s already stopped?

“Oliver?”

Her voice reaches him like a beacon, a signal he moves towards without conscious thought. Because he will always gravitate to her, always move into her orbit because that is where his balance lies. She’s the light to his darkness, the warmth to his cold, and the life to his despair.

She stands at the end of the hall, her clothing charred and burnt through in places to reveal angry red patches of skin. What isn’t burned is bruised and scratched, as if she’s survived a war zone, and he supposes that she has.

But she _has_ survived, and that’s all that matters.

He rushes to her side, and he whispers her name as he gathers her into his arms. He feels her wince, but she clings to him just as tightly. He wants to get her medical attention, wants to take her home, but right now he just wants her in his arms. Unsteady legs fail her once his arms are around her, but he has her lifted in his embrace within seconds, never letting her fall as he takes her unconscious form and leaves the building.

 _Concussion and exhaustion_ , they tell him later at the hospital. _Is anyone at home with her tonight_ , they ask him as her hand sneaks into his from her bedside and he listens to the doctor’s instructions. _Do you understand these things we’re telling you Ms Smoak_ , they ask as she’s ordered to rest in bed for at least three days unless she wants to end up back in the hospital.

 _Take me home_ , she tells him in the car, and those are the only words he needs to hear.


	115. When I See You Again

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anonymous said: Prompt Oliver Goes to see felicity after the events in legends ( Felicity Smoak? Hi I’m Oliver queen). OH AND I LOVE YOU
> 
> Anonymous said: Hi! I just wanted to know if you could write a fic, Olicity after what happened in legends 1.06 “Felicity Smoak, Hi I’m Oliver Queen”

“I’m so sorry I’m late, did my assistant offer you a ….Oliver.”

She’s still beautiful, that’s his immediate thought. Then again, that’s always his immediate thought when he sees her. The years have been kind to her, a dusting of silver hair in her ponytail that still lights up a room with a vibrance that radiates from her bright pink lips. It’s as if dust has settled on her, but she still shines beneath it, albeit with more than a few lines around her eyes and her lips.

Laughter lines, she’d called them once, when she traced his first one across his forehead. Naturally it had started between his eyes, where his frown was most deeply set. She’d said she wanted plenty of wrinkles, plenty of evidence that she had a life of laughter, of smiles, of love.

It looks like she got exactly what she wanted.

“Felicity…” he smiles, as she stalls in the doorway of her office, frozen in place when she sees him.

She approaches him slowly, her eyes raking over him as if to check that he’s not going to disappear on her. He doesn’t blame her with the amount of times he’s done that before. When she finally stands before him, her hand falls onto his remaining arm, gripping the inside of his elbow to anchor him there to her. “I didn’t think I’d ever see you again,” she says through a sigh of disbelief.

“I’m sorry I didn’t come by sooner,” he acknowledges, grateful just to feel the touch of her hand against him again.

“It’s okay…unless you were in Bali or something,” she adds with a quirk to her smile.

He releases a laugh, one that almost aches at his cheeks. He can’t remember how long it’s been since he smiled like this. Then again, he’s never smiled as much as he does when he’s with her. “Right.”

“Were you? In Bali?” She checks curiously.

Oliver shakes his head, bringing his hand up to grasp her forearm in response. “You know I’d never go back there without you,” he assures her.

She indulges in a smile for a moment, and his own indulgence is the way she watches him. This is, after all, the woman he planned to spend the rest of his life with. “What are you doing here?” She asks after a quiet moment.

“I missed you,” he confesses.

She bites at her lip as if she’s far younger than this woman who is approaching sixty years old, and he recognises this look - when he is offering her something and she doesn’t want to get her hopes up. “But the city…”

“Is not as important as you,” he finishes, removing any doubt from her mind as he squeezes his hand around her forearm. “I’m sorry I didn’t see that sooner.”

“Oliver…I understood why you stayed, the same reason I understood why you asked us all to leave,” she explains, as she brings her hands up to his cheeks with a fondness he’s forgotten over the years. “We all did.”

“I’m here now. If that’s okay?” He checks, adding the question almost hesitantly.

Her response is to step back and tug on his hand. “Why don’t we get out of here? Get some dinner, I’ll catch you up?” She suggests.

“Your assistant said you were busy today,” he half-teases. “I was lucky to get an appointment.”

“Some things are more important,” she insists.

She’s giving him a chance. He takes it without a second thought.

–

“What made you come out here?” She asks, hours later when they’re sat on her couch facing one another. Her legs are tucked beneath her, and she’s far more comfortable now. Lunch got out of hand, spiralling into an early dinner they collected as take-out and brought back to the apartment she now lived it. Coast City was far more crowded than Star City with recent events, and even these penthouses were cosy, despite their air of luxury.

“I saw Sara,” he confessed, his thumb stroking the neck of his wineglass.

Her gaze softened as she flickered her gaze over to a photograph of a dark-skinned girl clutching an infant in her lap. “Oliver…”

“Lance,” he tells her, before she can start to panic about what Sara Diggle would be doing in Star City. “Remember how she went on that time-travel crusade with Ray?”

“They came to see you?” She asks.

“They got stranded here. Seeing her was…eye-opening,” he reveals.

“How’s Johnny doing?”

“Still insisting his name is Connor.”

“We all took it hard,” she tells him, setting her hand on his shoulder from where it rests along the back of the couch. “He’ll come around in time.”

He sighs, dipping his head slightly towards her hand. The action makes his beard brush against the back of her hand, drawing an amused hum from her. “I missed so much,” he realises, his gaze skates to the bare fingers of her ring hand. “Are you…?”

“If you’re asking me if I moved on from you, the answer is no,” she tells him.

“Right,” he says, trying not to sound too relieved.

She gives him an awkward one-shouldered shrugs. “I never really considered us broken up, to be honest.”

“Me either,” he agrees, placing down his wine glass so he can redirect his working hand to interlink their fingers. “But that was a selfish hope. So there’s no angry husband due home to kick my ass?”

“Nope. Are you disappointed?” She teases, locking their fingers together with a decisive flick of her wrist. “Looking for a fight?”

“Looking for something,” he agrees lightly, lost in the brightness of her eyes.

She tilts her head slightly and he tries not to imagine that she’s leaning into him. “Do you know what I’m thinking right now?”

“That I’m an incredible idiot?” He guesses.

“That it’s been ten years since you last kissed me,” she corrects him.

Ten years too long, he realises. Because ten years is far too long to have a life without Felicity Smoak. “That’s a long time,” he agrees, as his focus drops to her lips and back to her eyes once more. It’s enough to inspire a gentle smirk to her gaze.

“There was a time you couldn’t go longer than ten minutes,” she says in a challenging tone.

“I remember it made a bus ride incredibly uncomfortable,” he recalls, drawing a laugh from before she was moving closer to him.

“So why aren’t you kissing me now?” She asks, as his fingers uncurl from hers. He instantly misses her warmth, but he no longer has the luxury of dual touch, and it’s been far too long since he touched the softness of her hair, or the gentle curve of her jaw.

“I’m afraid I’ll never stop,” he whispers, as the backs of his fingers touch her cheek.

“Is that a bad thing?” she asks him, as her eyes slip closed and his fingers coast up into her hair.

“No, I don’t think so,” he decides, when she brings her hands up to his cheeks, tracing the aging lines of his features before one hand sinks to its once-favoured spot at the base of his neck. He feels her closer then, warm breath against his lips that tease him to closing the gap until three words alone bring him crashing into her.

“Come home, Oliver.”


	116. Scan of Unmade Plans

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anonymous said: Hi :) wanted to send this to you ages ago: olicity au suffering from a loss of their small daughter, felicity is really depressed and shut down, doesnt want to talk and oliver tries being supportive and 1 night she sees him crying in baby’s room and she decides to pull herself together and support him (because she wasnt supporting at all before) and they overcome it somehow 
> 
> A/N: TRIGGER WARNINGS: PREGNANCY LOSS/STILLBIRTH.

The moment the door closes before them, everything seems to stop.

Things have been fairly automated the last few days. People have rallied around them, seen to their every need, started proceedings they hadn’t had the heart to consider, and now they’re standing in what can only be described as lounge clothes. She has her pyjamas on, but they aren’t matching. Matching the cartoons on the top and bottoms hasn’t been at the top of her priorty list, and he’s been passing the outfits to her blindly each day by what looks right when he reaches into the bag.

None of them have been right.

Nothing has been right since she died.

“Do you want something to eat?” Oliver asks, placing the hospital bag by the washer. His voice is hoarse because they haven’t talked much. They’ve mainly been talked to, so there hasn’t been much need for vocalizing what they can already feel between each other. “I can-”

“I’m not hungry,” she insists, moving immediately towards the stairs that lead to the bedroom.

The moment her arms cross over her chest, he knows he’s losing her.

“Felicity…”

She shakes her head as she turns. He can see the tears threatening her eyes, feel the dangerous tremor in her tone as she bites her lip. “Later. Please.”

He wants to say no. He wants to rush to her, hold her, cling onto her because she’s all he has left ow. He wants to hold onto her with every last piece of energy his body holds, because he isn’t sure how they’re supposed to go on now, but he knows if they start trying to do this alone, they’ll never survive this.

He isn’t sure they will, though. Survive it, that is.

He whispers a gentle “okay”, which she takes with a nod. He sees the grace in her eyes, the one she carries even now as their world has shattered beyond repair. It’s what gives her the strength to nod at him with an air of thanks for giving her that space.

“I’m going to go lie down,” she tells him.

“Okay,” he murmurs, staring down at the unpacked hospital bag at his feet.

“Oliver?”

He glances up to see that she’s stopped on the bottom step, half turned towards him. The tears are back on her cheeks which makes them immediately spring back to his eyes. He’s trying to be strong for her, like a good husband should be, but it’s hard when he wants to scream and throw things and —

“Yeah?” He whispers across the room.

“Are we? Okay?”

That’s the big question, isn’t it?

“I don’t know,” he admits. He made a promise once never to lie again, and he can’t bear to break it now. “I don’t know what we do now.”

“Neither do I,” she confesses.

That’s when the hardest part starts.

–

They thought the hardest thing in the world would be the moments that followed after they told their little girl was gone. They’d gone to the hospital in the dead of night, with a packed bag and a birth plan, and they’d been admitted to labor and delivery just after three o’clock in the morning. By five o’clock, they knew that something wasn’t right. Felicity insisted she didn’t feel right, and Oliver believed her.

By six o’clock, they were terrified, and their family were gathered outside while they were deciding that c-section might be the best course of action. The baby was in distress and there was something wrong with her heart rate.

By seven o’clock, their grief overtook them as a silent, limp baby was born into the room.

–

The pain strikes them so obviously at first. The tears always come. Felicity’s so flooded with hormones still that it’s easy to cry when a baby cries in the supermarket (they switch to online grocery orders), or when they pregnant women walk past them in the street (they start taking walks at night). Once they’d stopped seeing pain everywhere, it starts coming to them in their home. It’s in the jars of homemade baby food Oliver had been practicing making that still sit sealed in the back of the fridge until the smell overtakes everything else. It’s in the yellow rubber duck that sits beside the taps in their bathroom.

It’s in the bag from the hospital that doesn’t get unpacked into the laundry for a month. It’s the maternity dresses that are thrown away with a ferocity that even has his heart racing. It’s the

It’s the way he holds her in the night, but she flinches and tenses if his hand brushes over her stomach. It’s the way she pushes herself to get rid of the residual baby weight. It’s the way she loses herself in her work but can’t bear to go back to the office.

It’s the way he can’t put the hood on, because there’s no justice to find in this tragedy. He can’t bear to leave her. He doesn’t know where she’s at, because he doesn’t know where he’s at either. They don’t know where they are. They don’t know where they go next.

He just knows he can’t bear to be apart from her.

—

It’s been four months when he finally breaks. He can’t keep being brave for her, despite how badly he wants to. He’s been so afraid of what might happen if they’re both so openly broken, and he wants to be strong because she needs him to be. She carried the life they lost. She carried her and nurtured her, felt her grow, was connected to her in ways Oliver never got to appreciate.

He wants to tell himself that he doesn’t feel this way - that he can’t grieve as openly as she can because she lost more than him - but that’s true.

He doesn’t know how to grieve something he only felt live in the kicks beneath his palm.

There aren’t any pamphlets that explain that.

He finds himself in her nursery by accident. The door’s been closed for months and they haven’t been in here since she died, but the moment his heart cracks down the center he gravitates to this pink-walled room that he built for her. He did this with his bare hands - built the crib, assembled the furniture, painted the yellow bunnies on the wall, applied the fairy decals above the crib… he made this for her, and the realization that he never brought her here is what heaves the first sob from his chest.

He sinks down against the crib, his knees drawn up as his hands clasp at the little unicorn plush toy that had sat beside her blankets. It was the first thing they purchased when they found out they were having a girl.

They wanted it to be her favorite.

He doesn’t know how long he sits there before he’s not alone in the room. Felicity sits down at his side without a word, closing her hands over his as he cries. He’s heard her cry most nights, and he’s held even as the tears hit his cheeks and tumble into her hair, but despite that this is the first time she’s held him as he cries. His hands shake when she touches them.

“Oliver…”

“I just wanted to bring her home,” he wept.

She shakes her head, trying to tug the unicorn from his hands. “Don’t-”

He clenches his hands tighter, keeping it within his grasp. “I wanted to bring my baby _home_ where I could take care of her,” he repeats, swallowing thickly when his voice hitches. “They didn’t… we didn’t even get to bring her _home_.”

He was so excited to bring her home. His little girl. Their first baby. His first daughter. He remembers the day they’re told that they’re having a daughter, the excited smiles, the immediate discussion of names, his hopes that she’d inherit everything of Felicity’s. He was going to bring her into this nursery, and place her in the midst of everything he created for her, but he never got the chance.

He didn’t even get to hold her for very long. He only held her for a minute. One minute, that’s all he got, and she was already gone. He got to hold his daughter in his arms for sixty-three seconds and she never even knew he was there.

“I was supposed to be her dad,” his voice croaks, shattering with each syllable. “I was supposed to never let her go.”

Felicity’s inhale is shuddered, desperate as she shakes her head and tries to prise his hands into hers. It’s the first time she’s been in this room too. If it’s hurting him this badly, he can’t even imagine what this feels like for her. But he has to be here. It’s all he has left of her - things they wanted to give her that they never can. All those nights of dreaming if he would be a good father, would he provide enough for his daughter… it never mattered.

“Oliver, _please_ -”

“She’s _gone_ , Felicity,” he cries. “They just took her away from us. How is that _right_? How is it right that she’s in the ground when she should be _here_?” He gestures around the room, from the gentle pink curtains to the changing table beside the wardrobe. There’s space around the room for gifts they’d have accumulated, from toys they’d have brought her. The room is big enough that she’ll have eventually outgrown the crib and still had room for her big girl bed, a desk for her school work, maybe a mirror vanity for her to braid her hair in front of.

He dips his head down, pressing his sodden cheeks into the plush toy. “How is anyone going to know what she needs?” He wonders aloud. “Wh-what if she’s scared of the dark? What if she’s cold?” He swallows, shaking his head. “We only wrapped her in one blanket, maybe we should have given her two, or three. What if she misses our voices? Or she might be hungry? Or maybe she just wants _us_ … what if she wants us as much as we want her?”

He’s rambling, he knows that, but he’s been holding back these thoughts for what feels like an eternity and now he can’t keep them back. Because he can’t exist in a world where nothing happens to her now, where something they created with their love can no longer feel anything. These thoughts have haunted him at night afters she’s long since cried herself to sleep, and he can’t be brave anymore. He can’t be strong because he’s never felt so weak.

He needs to believe that she was right about her definition. Because even though she’s hurting in unimaginable ways, he needs to know that he can lean on her too. So he sobs with his back to his daughters unused crib, and he looks at her as if she might have all the answers.

Her response is to bite at her lip, her jaw trembling to reveal the shining tear tracks on her cheeks. Her grasp on his hand is dangerously tight now, as she holds herself to him by this one anchor she has granted herself, and he can’t bear to look away from her to watch how her thumb strokes the unicorn horn that pokes out from between his fingers.

“What if she’s got hiccups and I can’t feel them?” She whispers in a tiny voice. “I always used to feel her hiccups, every day. I can’t feel them anymore. I can’t feel her.”

The agony ripples through him in waves, so different from the way the initial grief had hit him. This is slow, rolling, and everlasting. It’s not the grief that will stay with them, he knows. It’s the pain that stays. They can grieve her, but they’ll never stop feeling her absence. They’ll never forget what this moment is like.

“This isn’t right,” he shakes his head. “None of this feels right.”

Her breath hitches as she chews at her lip again. “Oliver, we didn’t even get to see what color her eyes were,” she whispers painfully. “That’s all we talked about for weeks. Did she have my eyes, or yours?”

He tries to force his mind back, but there’s nothing there. “I can’t…I don’t know. I can’t remember how she looked, and I _hate_ it,” his head dips down to his hands because how can he look her in the eye after that? He doesn’t remember what his daughter looks like. He doesn’t remember if her cheeks were chubby or if her nose was rounded. “I just picture this baby and it doesn’t feel like she’s ours, like I’ve forgotten, and it makes me _sick_.”

“Oliver-”

She starts to speak but he doesn’t hear her. All he can do is cry for this little baby girl they didn’t get to bring home. How can he forget her face? What kind of father is he that he’s forgotten what his baby looks like? He’s supposed to know every part of her. He’s supposed to know exactly how many colors are in her eyes, exactly how many freckles she has and where they are. He’s supposed to know the exact shade of her hair color. He’s supposed to know the words to her favorite song, supposed to know every song on the damn Disney channel and he doesn’t know anything.

All he knows is that she had ten fingers, ten toes, and her heart wasn’t beating when she was born.

He cries until he’s hoarse, wants to cry until the world feels a little less unfair, but that moment never comes. All that happens is more pain, but physical pain is easier to manage.

“She didn’t hold my finger,” he heaves out between maddening cries that stir from the pit of his stomach. “I was _dreaming_ about that.”

There’s so many things they didn’t get to do. They didn’t get to dress her, or bathe her. They didn’t get to bring her home. They’ll never hear her first word, see her smile. They’ll never take her to school or see her graduate. He’ll never walk his daughter down the aisle. They never brought their baby home. “We were supposed to have a baby,” he shakes his head slowly. “Why isn’t she _here_?”

Felicity bows her head in a failed attempt to gather herself before her hoarse whisper brings his attention back to her. “Are you sleeping?”

“Felicity-”

“I can’t sleep,” she tells him. “Every time I close my eyes I wake up again, like she’s crying. Like she’s crying for me and I can’t hear her and I can’t get to her. So I just lie there with my eyes closed and my arms feel so _empty_.” She chews on her lip to cut herself off, and she wipes beneath her nose with the sleeve of her sweater. “I just wanted to keep holding her forever, I didn’t _want_ to give her back.”

The nurses had given them an hour. An hour to be with their baby before they took her away. To the morgue. While they did that, the nurses told their waiting family that their baby hadn’t survived, and Oliver and Felicity had been allowed one hour to say goodbye to her before they’d even said hello. Naturally, she’d been passed straight to Felicity, and Oliver had sat beside her as she’d cradled their silent, unmoving child in her arms. He couldn’t bear to take her away. How could he take their daughter out of the arms of the woman he loved? In turn, he sacrificed precious moments with her he’ll never get back. He’ll never get to hold her again.

“She was still inside me when she… Oliver, we never got to hear her _cry_ ,” Felicity whispers.

But they cry. They sit in the room that was supposed to be hers, and for the first time since she was taken from their arms, they cry together.

They cry until there’s nothing left in their hearts except the space they reserved for her.

–

They gravitate towards a place that feels like sanctuary, towards a door that’s new to their lives because it’s not the property, it’s the person behind the door. Donna has mothered them both - Felicity her whole life and Oliver for the four years of their relationship. She has given her everything to them both, and now, when they don’t know what to do, they come to the person who has always guided them through their roughest storms.

“Mom…” Felicity murmurs.

“Baby, everything okay?” Donna asks, looking between the two of them with concern.

“No…we…” she breaks off, unable to say the words, but Oliver tightens his hand around hers and looks up, speaking the words they haven’t been able to voice for months.

“We need help,” he admits, as they stand as a united front against this pain for the first time. “We aren’t coping. We aren’t…” he stops and looks down at Felicity, waiting for her nod before he turns back to her. “We can’t do this, Donna.”

She responds instantly, pulling the door back for them to enter. “Come on, come in. Sit down, I’ll make some tea.”

Felicity takes her mother’s hand as they enter. “Mom-”

Donna silences her with a kiss on her cheek and nods towards the living room. “I’ll make some tea,” she repeats.

—

“Okay, start at the beginning,” Donna coaxes them, as they sit before her with one hand each on their compulsory mugs of tea and the other clasped tightly around one another’s. For the first time in months, they allow themselves to try and take comfort in these small touches, to try and seek the assurances that were once communicated so easily through the briefest contact.

Felicity looks first at Oliver, and then back at her mother. “You know what this is, Mom.”

“Say it out loud,” she encourages simply.

But she stalls, sucking in a breath and holding it for several long moments until she shook her head. “I can’t-”

“Have you said it loud, even to each other?” Donna asks, looking between them both. They don’t look at one another this time. They don’t need to. “Say it,” she repeats, her voice softer. “You can’t heal unless you acknowledge what you’re healing from.”

Oliver squeezes her hand, with an expression that encouraged her, but the words couldn’t burst from Felicity’s lips with that ease, no matter the determination. Keeping his gaze on his wife, Oliver took a deep breath and whispered the words they’ve been avoiding for months.

“We… our baby was stillborn.”

Felicity’s face crumples, he sees it flickers around her lips, but the pain only shows through her eyes watering. She tries to swallow it down but it’s not so simple, and he has to hold her hand even tighter to keep himself together.

Donna moves to sit on the coffee table in front of them, both her hands clasping around their joined ones. “Okay. First step is the worst,” she tells them.

“How do we survive this?” Felicity asks her mother.

Oliver nods his agreement. “Because it’s killing us.”

“All we want is to be with her.”

“ _No_ ,” Donna says firmly, squeezing their hands with a ferocity they wouldn’t have expected from such delicate hands. “No, you _don’t_ talk like that,” she tells them both. “What happened was a tragedy. It was a terrible, _terrible_ thing and god knows I wish you two never had to experience something like this. This family lost a sweet little angel that we can never get back, but going after her is _not_ a solution.”

Tears slip onto Felicity’s cheeks, almost with a longing. “ _Mom_ -”

“I _need_ to know that you understand that, both of you,” Donna stresses, looking between them. In that moment, she reminds Oliver of his own mother, and he realizes that this is something all mothers have - a steadfast determination to know their children are okay.

“We know,” Oliver assures her, no matter how much their voice shakes. “We just…feel…”

“Incomplete,” Felicity finishes for him.

“Yeah,” he whispers.

“You can’t do this separately,” Donna reminds them. “This is going to be the hardest thing you ever have to do. Lord knows the idea of burying my baby tears out my heart, I can’t even imagine what you two must be feeling right now,” she says with a saddened exhale that chokes them all up.

“Maybe…maybe we need to talk about it,” Felicity suggests after a few quiet moments pass.

“I think seeing a therapist could help you both,” Donna nods, squeezing their hands as if she’s rewarding them for a correct thought.

Felicity shakes her head fiercely. “Oliver doesn’t like therapists-” she started, her mind set on his attitude of discussion what had happened to him years ago.

Oliver, however, surprises her, tugging her hand slightly to bring her attention solely to him. “Felicity…we should go,” he agrees, his voice soft.

“Oliver-”

“This isn’t about me, or my past. This is about the two of us,” he points out. “It’s about… it’s about _her_. We should do this for her.”

“For her,” she agrees quietly.

“Did you give her a name?” They turn their gaze to Donna almost questioningly when she asks them, so she repeats it. “The baby, did you name her?”

“No. We didn’t choose one,” Felicity reveals.

“Maybe it’s time,” Donna suggests to them. “I know we did a service, but I think it’s important that you do something that you can both remember her by.”

“We didn’t name her, Oliver…” Felicity shakes her head, her hand shaking on her mug so badly that she set it aside to wipe her cheeks.

Oliver raised his head, looking at her with a moment of realization. “Yeah, we did.”

“We didn’t-”

“We kept taking about Emily, before…” he recalls, his voice soft as it passes his lips.

“Emily,” she repeats quietly.

“Yeah,” he breathes out. “If you still like it.”

“Yeah,” she nods.

“Emily,” Donna smiles slightly, matching their decisive nods. “Now we know who we’re remembering.”

Felicity seems to sag, her free hand clenching in front of her lips as if it might hide the words she speaks. “I’m so afraid we’ll forget her, but at the same time I want this hurt to stop…”

Donne takes one hand away from theirs and cups it to her cheek. “Sweetheart, it’s never going to stop. That’s what motherhood is.”

“But I’m not a Mom,” she whispers painfully.

“You _are_ a mother,” Donna stresses. “You are a mother from the day you take that test. Just because your baby’s up with the angels doesn’t mean that you stop being a mother, or a father,” she adds, looking at Oliver with a squeeze of his hand.

“They said…they said in the hospital we didn’t do anything wrong,” Oliver remembers. “That it was just… an accident.”

“Accidents happen. It doesn’t mean it hurts any less,” Donna acknowledges. “You lost your baby girl. One day, you’ll have more babies. Not right now, but one day you’ll be ready, the time will be right and you’ll have another baby. But that doesn’t mean you’ll ever forget this little one.”

The idea of carrying another child, of birthing another child, of having those tense moments of an unborn child in distress, is frightening. It makes them both tense, because how do they do this again? How do they get excited over a life that can so easily be torn away from them at the last moment? How do they transform that beautiful nursery into a bedroom for another child?

“I don’t know if I can replace her…” Felicity whispers, to which Oliver nods his agreement. It’s far too soon. Donna’s right when she says now is not the time. At the moment, they can’t see any time being perfect.

“Hon, you get a dog to replace the child that goes to college. You never replace a baby,” Donna assures her. “One child doesn’t replace another. Now, why don’t you stay here tonight.”

At her offer, they shake their heads. “Donna, you don’t have to…”

Her hands clasp over theirs again. “Let me have a night to look after my babies. Yes, _both_ of you,” she says with a pointed look at Oliver. “My daughter, and my son-in-law. You two are my family, and she was my granddaughter. The only way that you heal from something like this is a family. So let me take care of my family, and you two can sleep. You can eat a good meal, and get some rest.”

They share a glance and decide that perhaps what they need is a night away from the home that is choking them. They’ve barely survived taking care of one another, and perhaps a night with someone else watching their backs is what they need. So they can rest. So they can eat. So they can sleep.

“Mom…” Felicity whispers, leaning forward to wrap her arms tightly around her mother’s neck.

“Yeah, hon?”

“Thank you.”

Donna’s eyes close, and she reaches out to draw Oliver into the embrace as well. “You don’t need to thank me,” she insists. Because this is simple to her - this is taking care of her family. This is something they never got the opportunity to explore beyond one another. She’ll help them take care of them while they relearn how to take care of each other. She’ll give them time off from the everyday tasks that are starting to break them down.

“…you’re not going to cook, are you?” Felicity whispers.


	117. Will You Marry Me?

_Will you marry me?_

The words are on the tip of his tongue when he sees her choosing between two pairs of coveted heels to place into the last bag she could afford to pack. They’re leaving in a few hours, but they want to be packed before they say their last goodbyes to their friends, and he’s only got space for one more case in the back of the car. It comes down to the blue heels or the pink ones. It’s a toss up because she loves them both and he adores her in both colors, and its when she turns to him with her hands on her hips, one of each shoe dangling off her fingers, that he has to clamp down his lips before the words come out.

_Will you marry me?_

The words almost fall from his lips when she’s rocking slowly above him, her eyes closed and her head tilted back with a blissful wash of relaxation across her fingers. He’d tried to savour it in Nanda Parbat, but time had been against them, but this time he can take in each flicker of pleasure across her face. He’s learning her body, discovering the final parts of her that have been hidden to him for the last few years. It’s when she breaks above him, so in sync with his own body, that it strikes him that he never wants to see another woman like this. He never wants to experience this again if he can’t have it with her. This is the woman he wants to spend the rest of his life with.

_Will you marry me?_

He wants to wake her up and ask her, but they’ve been driving for hours and she fell asleep not long ago, curled into the passenger seat with her body facing towards him. His fingers are gently knotted with hers, where she’d tugged his hand within the cradle of her own and toyed with the digits until sleep took her. He wants to wake her because she’s beautiful, because she’s there beside him, because he wants to be driving with her until he can’t move anymore, but he manages to drive until they get to a motel and she doesn’t stir until the next morning.

_Will you marry me?_

Bali is more freeing than he ever imagined it would be, and she teaches him that not all islands are terrible. Bali is going to be somewhere special, he knows that, but as much as he wants to sink down onto one knee every time they pause for breath, he can’t bring himself to do it. Somehow, it’d ruin the magic of the moment, because everything here is careless. They are free from everything except one another. One day, maybe, he’ll ask her here, but for now he can walk barefoot through the sand and make love to her beneath the stars, and for now, it’s enough.

_Will you marry me?_

The house is theirs, and he finds it a little hard to believe that this four-bedroomed house in a suburban cul-de-sac is the place they’ve chosen to live. They’ve talked about using the space for a home office and gym equipment, but that leaves one bedroom they haven’t talked about and one that remains empty. Guest room, he assumes, because he doesn’t want to push for something they’re not ready for, but she smiles and tells him it’ll have a use someday. And she stands in that empty room,and his life unfolds before him. Suddenly there’s wedding rings, soft pine furniture and a cooing child in her arms and the only reason he doesn’t ask her is because the thought alone chokes him.

_Will you marry me?_

The words are rehearsed in his head when he returns from his family’s vault with his mother’s ring in his pocket. It hadn’t even taken Thea three seconds to decide that she was okay with him using the heirloom to propose, but he isn’t sure if it’ll be tonight. Now that he has the means, he’s not sure how to do it. He wants to ask her during the sunset, over dinner, when she’s waking up, when she’s dancing in her underwear, when she’s wrapped around him.

He wants to marry her every time he looks at her, every time he feels her arms around him, when she tells him that she loves him. He wants to marry her, share his last name, wear a matching gold band with her, have children with her, grow old with her. And now the means were snug in his pocket.

_Will you marry me?_

He approaches her desk and takes in the look of concentration on her features. She’s still distracted by the work before her even as she’s halfway turned towards him. The moment she faces him, he recalls her face. He remembers the way her voice chirps through and empty room as easily as he remembers the way everything had settled for him. This time, he’s not so blinded by his own distractions to realize she doesn’t care who he is, what he does, or what he may possibly do. She is a person. He is a person. It’s that simple.

And the thought that he could have a simple life with a beautiful woman?

Maybe it’s not that unthinkable.


	118. Pillow Mountains

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anonymous said: Because of that ET interview where Stephen’s like “because shes a good kisser,” i need a fic now where Oliver realizes Felicity is the best kisser he’s ever been with. Soft lips, passionate yada yada. Maybe he tells her and she’s like “yeah right!”

“I think…you might be…the best…kisser…I’ve ever been with.”

She laughs beneath each of the kisses that he punctuates his sentence with. Each is sloppier and less-timed than the last, and after an entire afternoon in bed together they’ve knocked teeth so many times she’s considering a dental stop on this borderline-insane road trip they seem to be on.

She thinks they’ll be okay, though. She’s pretty sure no one’s ever had a tooth knocked out through kissing.

Then again, she didn’t think anyone had ever really broken a bed with sex before but that’d happened three days ago.

“I doubt it,” she laughs off his insistence.

Because Oliver Queen has a plethora of women in his past who have no doubt done obscenely wonderful things to him that don’t come anywhere close to her kisses.

He’s not so sure.

“Pretty sure,” he insists, resting on his forearms to balance his weight over her.

They’ve had three rounds already, as the sun sets somewhere behind the curtains they didn’t even open that morning, and she’s pretty sure that if he keeps using those damn wonderful lips of his against her pulse point it’s going to turn into round four, and in the three weeks they’ve been on the road there hasn’t been a round four, so that’d be a pretty big record breaker as far as sex is concerned and —

“I was thinking five,” he chirps in amusement, lifting his face to hers to show her that she’s been thinking out loud again. “Because we do need to order room service, but I think I’m pretty good here and after we’ve eaten I want to make good use of that bathtub.”

“Is that why you’re complimenting my kisses?” she teases as her arms loop around the wide expanse on her shoulders. “To get awesome tub sex?”

“We haven’t had awesome tub sex yet,” he points out with a small raise of his eyebrow. It’s a side of Oliver that’s very new to her, and a side that she thoroughly enjoys. “But I’m complimenting your kisses because they’re the best and they deserve the praise.”

“Hmm,” she mumbles, allowing him to distract her from her doubts with a brush of his lips over hers again.

It’s remarkable easy to lose herself in him, especially with his lips. She can’t help but think it’s a good thing they didn’t do this any sooner than they have because they’d get nothing done back in Starling in this state. She’s never had much of a honeymoon period with a relationship before, but it still hasn’t died down yet and it’s just as wonderful as people say it is.

It’s sex with Oliver Queen. Often multiple times a day. What wouldn’t be wonderful?

But this. The kissing. That’s pretty wonderful too. It’s perfect, actually, to the point that she can’t see why he’s complimenting her kisses when his are very orgasmic.

“I mean it,” he tells her, pulling his lips away from hers and brushing the tip of his nose against hers. “Your kisses are… home.”

“Home?” she queries, nudging her nose back against his.

“I can’t explain it,” he shakes his head slightly. “But when I’m kissing you, I know this is where I’m supposed to be. That I’ll be okay as long as I’m with you.”

“At last, he realises!” she declares dramatically, glad for the broad smile he flashes at her before he’s lowering himself against her again. “Already?” she laughs, feeling him twitching to life against her thigh.

“Can you blame me?” he points out. “You’re very naked.”

“You’re so bad,” she tells him, even as she hooks her leg up over his waist.

“Let me show you how bad I can be.”


	119. Rumor Mill

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> broadwaygleek4life said: Prompt: olicity pretty woman AU any scene from the movie

The door slams as she enters the foundry. Each footfall against the stairs echoes with a very clear indicator of every emotion spewing from her as she makes her way down to them. Anger. Shame. Embarrassment. Oliver and Diggle exchange brief glances as she storms past them and settles into her usual chair before her computers, dropping her bag onto the floor without any regard for its contents until she has to lean down and take her tablet out.

“Felicity?” Oliver questions, stepping forwards.

“I’m fine,” she snaps at him, not even turning in his direction as he stops at her side with his hand on the back of her chair.

“You don’t look fine,” he observes.

“I just-”

“Hey,” he whispers, dropping his hand down to her shoulder and squeezing it gently. “Talk to me.”

She takes a deep breath, and he watches the exhale flow through her entire form. Whether it’s the calming breath or the hand on her shoulder, she seems to relax and it’s a sight that he selfishly revisits when he feels unsettled himself.

She sucks in a breath after, waving her hand. “So I did what you told me to do, even though it was totally unnecessary and I really could pay for my own dress for tonight but-”

“Did you get something?” he asks.

“They wouldn’t serve me,” she spits out, sniffing harshly after as her anger returns and gets the better of her.

“Excuse me?” he frowns.

She shakes her head, one hand rubbing at her cheek and the idea of her wasting tears over this rage makes him even more annoyed. “They took one look at Mr. Queen’s executive assistant flashing his credit card around and pretty much walked me out the door sniggering,” she tells him bitterly.

He had only wanted to treat her. She was helping him out by accompanying him to a gala that featured a lot of major tech names across the country. She was invaluable in that respect, and to help him make a good impression she’d agreed to go as his guest and - to be frank - dumb things down for him. So he’d offered to buy her a dress for the event, in return for her help.

But this?

“Unacceptable,” he states as he steps back.

“So I think they agreed with those tabloid rumours,” she mumbles.

He watches her close in on herself then. He knows that since begrudgingly accepting the position of his executive assistant that she’s been the target of some less than complimentary gossip stories - all of which included him and what exactly he was using her services for. Since they were unable to go public with what they were really working on when they left late together or arrived early together, they simply had to endure it and while that’s easy for him, it’s something new for her.

He knows she comes off a lot worse in this stories than he does. He tries not to read them, but it’s hard when it extends to whispers in the halls that have her ducking her shoulders.

Screw the rumours.

“Get up,” he tells her simply, stepping away from her and reaching for his own jacket.

She turns in her chair but doesn’t move. “Why?”

“We’re going back there.”

Her hesitance is clear in the way she shakes her head quickly, as if the idea is so unthinkable she’d rather take the initial embarrassment over what he was suggesting. “Oliver-”

He leaves no room for argument as he leans past her and turns her computer back off with one flick of his wrist.

“Now.”

—

If she wasn’t embarrassed before, she’s mortified when Oliver basically marches her back into the boutique store she only left an hour ago. The woman on the sales desk looks shocked to see her returning until her eyebrows shoot up at the sight of Oliver walking a few steps behind her, with a hand on her lower back.

Oliver leads her right to the sales desk, leaning one arm against it as he focuses his eyes on the woman. “Excuse me, is the manager in?”

The woman tries to look unabashed as she straightens. “Of course, that’s myself. How can I help?”

“My name’s Oliver Queen-”

“Of course, Mr. Queen,” she nods, as if he ever need to introduce himself anywhere.

“You might remember Miss Smoak, my assistant, from earlier today.”

Felicity considers taking a step behind Oliver at this point, but his hand on her back is firmer than it seemed and it’s somewhat amusing when the woman looks mildly terrified.

“Mr. Queen, if I might explain-”

“No need to explain, I’ve heard all about your clientele requirements,” he says, and while there’s a smile on his face it can’t be trusted. In fact, Felicity’s never seen so much of Moira in him as she has in that moment. “The thing is, Miss Smoak is not just my assistant, she’s my best friend, and she is accompanying me to a very important event tonight. I understand you’ve dressed my sister for many such occasions.”

The woman nods far too eagerly. “Yes, Mr. Queen.”

“Now, imagine my sister’s style, but with a considerably more elegance,” he explains, spreading his hands in a gesture to her, but his eyes remain on the manager. “I’m sure this time I hand you my card, we aren’t going to have any problems.”

“Certainly not, Mr. Queen,” she assures him quickly.

“Then I expect Miss Smoak to be treated like a Queen.”

He slides his credit card across the counter, and turns to wink at her. She tries not to let her knees tremble at the sight.

She fails.

–

The delay at the boutique means that she has to meet him at the event. It doesn’t do well for Oliver to be arriving on his own while she takes a taxi, but when she steps out of the car he’s waiting just outside the lobby for her, his hand tapping nervously against his thigh until he sees her.

And he sees her as if he’s seeing her for the first time.

“Felicity…” he breathes out as she approaches him.

She stops, glancing down at her chosen dress - a slim scarlet gown that shows off curves she wasn’t used to putting on display with a surprising taste. For the first time, she feels completely worthy of standing at Oliver Queen’s side. When she looks back up, the expression on his face makes her stomach flip. “Your credit card guarantees some pretty fancy treatment.”

He matches her smile, but shakes his head lightly, taking her hands in his own as he takes her in. “You look amazing, you look…”

When he trails off, she winces slightly. “Like when they adopt someone from the middle of a jungle and put her in an expensive dress?”

But the shake of his head is firmer when he squeezes her hands. “Beautiful,” he corrects her.

She tilts her head slightly. “You’re not looking at the dress.”

“I don’t have to,” he points out, before he tugs her hands towards the entrance. “Come on.”

When they bypass the entrance to the gala, she frowns at him. “Where are we going?”

He indicates to a sign for the main hotel bar, one that she knows from the building layout that she checked out of habit is far away from the main hall that the event is it held in. “You need a drink.”

And when the choice is between being a good guest and translating tech speak for Oliver’s less understanding ears, and risking the gossip mags once again by cornering herself in the hotel bar with him…

“I very much need a drink.”

The choice is easy.


	120. Doesn't Matter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anonymous said: Prompt–using that video from snapchat that Charlotte posted. Olicity cuddling on the couch after a particularly hard day. How will they cheer themselves up?

She sinks back against his chest and the entire day disappears.

His arms are magical like that, she swears. He’s got a wonderful way of making every inch of stress leave her tense shoulders, even if sometimes he’s the one that’s caused the stress. Today, it’s far from it. Today he’s been her knight in green leather, the peace after her war, the saviour from a day that had seemed a complete failure from the moment she got out of bed.

And somewhere between the broken coffee machine, the meeting that overran by two hours and the ninety-eight unread emails in her work account, she remembers that it’s okay to need him again.

So she presses her lips to his shoulder when she finds him already cooking her favourite meal, and nurses the glass of wine that he’s poured ready for her, and after the dinner is gone there’s nothing but his arms, and she’s incredibly, wonderfully alright with that.

“Rough day?” he murmurs as his lips brush against hers.

The gentle rumble of his tone and the soft lips that really, it’s criminal to be that soft, almost make her drift off to sleep in an instant. But she perseveres with the chore of being awake for no other reason than it’s been a long day and she wants the reward that his arms bring her. “Too rough,” she mutters back.

The arm that’s looped around her slides around her waist, drawing her closer to him as his hand splays across her stomach. This time his lips land against the side of her neck, slow and lingering as she leans into it.

“Mmm, that’s better,” she sighs.

“Good,” he hums, as his kisses continue a path along her throat. “My day was crappy too.”

She frowns slightly, turning towards him. “Why? What happened?”

“Doesn’t matter,” he insists with a small smile as his fingers comb through her blonde waves. “It’s better now.”

Later, when the wine is set aside when she’s happy seated in his lap while he does sinful things to her most sensitive places, she realises he’s right - it doesn’t matter. Emails don’t matter. Meetings don’t matter. Coffee machines don’t—-okay, that one matters a little. But overall, the things she worries about don’t compare to what she comes home to. No matter if she responds to everything in a day, she goes home to the man who loves her, to a home that is warm and happy.

Nothing else matters.


	121. After the Storm

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anonymous said: I love seeing Oliver vulnerable, can you write something angsty where Oliver is really depressed after the break up and he disappears somewhere. When his team finds out, is worried he’ll do something stupid , so they come to Felicity for help and she doesn’t stop until she finds him, when they bring him back, she takes care of him and won’t leave his side : )

 “Hey.” **  
**

Her voice is so soft he almost misses it beneath the dangerous thoughts running around in his mind. It’s gentle like the way her fingers used to card through his hair, warm like the sated embraces they once shared, caring like she once loved him with every inch of her.

“Felicity…” he breathes out, as his vision finally centres on something.

“What were you doing out there, Oliver?”

There. Where it was cold. He’d ran after they buried Laurel. He’d ran and now he’s back in the bunker, with his back against the wall and his elbows resting on his knees, but between the funeral and now he was somewhere else. He went to the docks, because it’s the furthest point of Starling City from the hospital that he can get without crossing the city border, and he recalls making a promise not to leave town but he can’t remember who made him swear to that.

“I don’t know,” he whispers.

His eyes meet hers, which are steady in her grief. It’s still there, still as bringing hues of grey to her usual blue and the reminds that others are feeling this pain just as surely makes his heart clench. She’s sitting right before him, her legs crossed beneath the skirt of her dress. “Yes, you do.”

He swallows, averting his gaze down to his shaking hands. “I can’t explain it.”

“Yes, you can,” she tells him as she clasps her hands around his own, stilling them and replacing the trembling nerves with a rush of warmth. He can’t remember the last time that he felt this warmth from her, the warmth that makes him feel like this life - this icy, humanity stealing life - is worth living. “You can always tell me about your day,” she assures him.

It’s a mirror of a promise he made to her years before - one of the first promises he ever made her - and he honors it the best he can by squeezing the life line she offers in her palms. “Everyone’s disappearing,” he breaths out.

“You miss Laurel,” she whispers in understanding when he hangs his head.

He nods, but doesn’t lift his face to hers again. “And you.”

“Oliver…”

There are tears in his eyes that he chokes down, because the urge to bolt returns when her reluctant whisper threatens to remind him of his current solitude. “When I think about losing Tommy, losing my mother, losing Sara… I was so lost and…”

You were there. The unspoken words hang in the air between them, but he hopes she understands what he cannot say by the way that her hands tighten around his.

“I’m here now too, Oliver,” she murmurs.

He shakes his head, drawing in breath by a ragged inhale. “But you’re not…”

She stops his protest by releasing one of his hands and placed it on the back of his neck. His head dips further under the familiar pressure of her fingers against the taut muscle, and the tears return as his chest begins to tighten. She stills him as though she knows his body’s reactions better than her own. “Hey, take a breath,” she soothes, moving her hand up to his hair. “You’re okay.”

“I’m not,” he protests through a gasp.

“Oliver…”

“I’m not okay,” he repeats, lifting his gaze to hers at last and allowing her to see into the storming eyes. The tears spill through at last, coasting down his cheeks. She doesn’t shy away from his demons, never has, and it’s part of what he loves about her - that in his darkest, most trouble moments, she sees him for what he wants to be, what he needs to be. She sees more of him than the things he’s done. “I’m really not okay,” he chokes.

The hand in his hair filters down to his cheek. “I’m right here, hon.”

“Felicity-”

She pulls away from him, standing as she opens both palms to him. “Take my hands,” she urges him gently, and when he slips them into hers and tugs lightly he finds his way to his feet without any further encouragement. She doesn’t release his hands when he’s standing. “Let’s get you home, and figure out how to make this better, okay?”

“Okay.”

—

John stops her by the car. Oliver’s already in her passenger seat when she feels the comforting touch of his hand on her shoulder. She pauses before getting into the car, immediately noting the cautious look he threw towards Oliver. “Felicity-”

“I’m taking Oliver home,” she tells him simply.

“Is that what you want?” he asks her.

“It’s what he needs,” she counters, “and I need to know he’s okay.”

“Felicity…” he starts.

“It’s okay,” she cuts him off as she forces a smile. “We did a lot of work on things like this over the summer. I can get him through this,” she adds confidently.

“Will you be okay?” he checks.

“We’ll be fine,” she assures him. “I’ll call you tomorrow, okay?”

“In the morning, please,” he insists as he ducks down to kiss her cheek.

—

“I didn’t expect this,” Oliver mutters as he lies in bed beside her.

It’s the first time in a month that she’s been in this bed - certainly the first time she’s walked into this room in several months, but tonight bringing him back here doesn’t feel uneasy. It feels like home, because their home has always been built on foundations of healing.

“I told you I wasn’t going anywhere,” she assures him, closing the gap between them by knotting her fingers through his.

“You didn’t have to do that,” he whispers.

“I did,” she nodded.

“Felicity-”

“I meant it, when I told you that I loved you,” she assures him, squeezing his fingers with a sad hint of a smile. “That doesn’t stop because of all this.”

“But it does go away,” he murmurs regretfully.

“Oliver, look at me,” she urges him. “Clearly staying out of each other’s lives isn’t something that’s possible for us, and with how we feel about each other, I think this is inevitable. But I don’t want us to fall back into this because we lost our friend. We can’t put that kind of pressure on losing her.”

He sighs, allowing his eyes to slip closed again once she’s finished. “You’re right.”

“But I am here, for you, whenever you need me, okay?” she assures him.

“Okay.”

“Get some sleep,” she tells him. “We’ll talk in the morning.”

“Thank you,” he whispers, getting comfortable in a way that brings him a few inches closer to her. There’s a risk of his body gravitating towards hers through the night anyway, but the assurance that she wants is worth the risk of being closer to her for a few brief waking moments.

“You never have to thank me,” he hears her echo as his eyes finally close.


	122. Nightlight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> secretfangirllife said: Hi! So I’m really new to Tumblr and all of this stuff, but I am in love everything you do! But I have this little idea that I thought I would ask, about Oliver having nightmares and something like for the first week or so that he and Felicity are together, he avoids sleeping or makes an excuse to sleep on the couch because he’s ashamed for Felicity to know he has nightmares or is scared to hurt her. (sorry this may be kinda similar to the one you just wrote but it’s an idea I’ve has for a while) 
> 
> dilkishehnaai said: Felicity falling in love with watching Oliver fall asleep
> 
> Anonymous said: So um What Was Once Mine just about killed me. Any chance you’d be willing to follow it up with an ‘Oliver wakes up from a terrible, terrible nightmare and makes love to his wife until he stops shaking’-fic?

The first time she catches him, she’s hurt.

He doesn’t blame her. It looks bad. It’s not as bad as it could be, but it definitely looks bad in the early hours of the morning when she finds him curled on the couch beneath a thin scrap of a blanket with his head on a scatter pillow.

A pillow she swiftly pulls from beneath him and smacks against his shoulder.

“What are you doing down here?”

He freezes on the couch as he comes back to himself and realises how this looks to her. Because he usually manages to fool her into thinking that he’s fallen asleep beside her, and he was definitely still in the bed when she fell asleep.

He thinks about telling her the truth.

He thinks about telling her about how his nightmares have been teasing him in the middle of the night, and how each time he startles awake he’s dangerously close to her, and he hates the idea of hurting her when he isn’t aware of his own surroundings. He’s terrified to let her into that darker side of his mind.

But he can’t.

“I don’t have any explanation that you’ll like,” he tells her instead.

She just scowls at him, tossing the pillow down against his torso. “Bed, now.”

“Felicity-”

“Now!” she snaps tiredly, pointing at the stairs. When he does move, she shoves his shoulder and stumbles behind him. “I know what I signed up for, Oliver Queen, now get upstairs and cuddle me or you’ll be officially sleeping on the couch for the rest of our lives.”

He can’t help but smile, twisting to lift her tired form into his arms. “Yes, dear.”

—

A year later, Oliver’s eyes flicker open to find Felicity lying on her side, staring intently at him. It’s a sight he isn’t greeted with very often since she developed her favoured act of nestling into his arms and refusing to surface without the aid of coffee, so he relishes in the moment, reaching across the small space between them and bringing her into his arms. It’s a weekend, they have nowhere to be, and he plans on spending all that free time with her in bed.

But she pulls her head back before he can kiss her, watching him curiously. “You okay?”

He blinks. “Yeah, why?”

This time, her head tilts. “I got up three times to pee last night and you didn’t even notice.”

He’s been sleeping better, he knows that. They’ve found ways of coping with the nightmares that slip through, though wrapping his body around hers at night seems to be a wonderful way of staving them off in the first place. But sleeping so deeply that he doesn’t feel the absence of her at his side is unheard of.

“Why did you get up for the bathroom three times?” he asks her instead.

“I have to pee all the time now,” she reminds him, and the hint has him smiling as he brings his palm down to cover the slight bump on her stomach where his child is making its presence known. “It’s your stupid kid.”

A lazy grin splits his face. “No, it’s my awesome kid,” he counters. “My kid is awesome.”

“Your kid thinks my bladder is his chair,” she points out, but not arguing when he just laughs and flips her onto her back, covering her body with his.

–

The storm is just starting outside when Felicity’s pulled out of sleep by a whimper of “Momma” from the door that has her creeping from beneath Oliver’s arm and towards her waiting son’s arms. He always wakes with the storms, and with a quick check that Oliver’s not reacting badly, she lifts Tommy onto her hip and carries him back to bed.

She’s barely settled their four year old back in bed when she hears the hurried steps and turns to see a terrified Oliver standing in the doorway. A flash of lightning makes him jerk and his breath come faster and his first instinct - in any situation - is to rush to his son’s bedroom to check on him.

He watches as she turns and kisses their half-sleeping boy goodnight one last time before she goes to Oliver. He doesn’t take his eyes off Tommy until she takes his hand and leads him back to the bedroom.

The moment the door closes behind them, she feels her back against it as he presses her into the wooden panel. She isn’t surprised, and she’s more than willing. It’s a routine they’ve forged over the years, one that’s flawless for his moments of fear.

He needs to be buried inside her, to feel her warm body pressed so intimately against his own. The only way he knows to get his body under control is to give it to her.

His legs are trembling despite his strength, so she coaxes him over to the bed without tearing her lips away from his. His instinct is always for control, and usually she enjoys that but that’s not what he needs tonight. She knows that from the strangled pleasure that bursts from the back of his throat when she lies down atop him and presses herself against the bulge in his sweatpants.

Neither of her boys like the storms. Tommy needs his hair stroked and a whisper of his mother’s voice. Oliver needs a lot more.

When he’s panting for different reasons, Oliver holds her in place stop him. She settles against him, burying her face against his neck as he places her between him and the storm like a safety blanket.

The nightmares never go away. She knows they never will. He doesn’t even have the hope that they might.

But he never has to deal with them alone.


	123. Getting There

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anonymous said: You know how Felicity thanked Oliver for saving her? How bout a fic where idk shes drunk or something and she’s talking to him admitting how she felt in that moment. Like maybe she thought he’d hate her after breaking things off. Or he would forget.

After finally resting his head for the night,the last thing that Oliver expected was for his phone to ring. What he expected even less was for Felicity’s face to flash across the screen.

It had been mere minutes since he’d dragged himself out of the searing hot shower he’d stumbled tiredly into when he arrived home. He tried to tell himself that it was a heightened concern he’d been harbouring all day for Felicity, that it was because he’d put in more effort to his own surroundings because she wasn’t watching his back, but that would be a lie. It was exhausting because since she left, sleep was as elusive as it had been when he first returned from Lian Yu. Sleep evaded him, and when it did allow him to find a moment’s peace, he’d find himself watching her walk away from him over and over.

On bad nights, he’d watch her slaughtered by Darhk’s ghosts right in front of his eyes.

With that thought in mind, he indulged himself momentarily in the sight of her smiling face - it certainly did its job to replaced the panicked ferocity he’d seen her wearing on her features earlier that day. Over their summer away he’d replaced the photo that matched her Queen Consolidated I.D. badge with a photo of her grinning freely towards the Bali sunset. The rich orange light added a firey radiance to her being, and after years of a bland standard phone background, he’d easily replaced it with each selfie she’d taken of them on his phone until the current image had found permanence on the screen.

Eventually, he slid his thumb across the photo, accepting the call and barely whispering her name before she was greeting him with a tremor in her tone.

“Hey.”

He couldn’t hide his concern as he mirrored her. “Hey.”

She took a deep breath, one he heard across the call as if she were steeling herself. “Sorry, I know it’s late, I-”

“It’s okay,” he assured her. He wasn’t sure exactly what time it was when he eventually made it back from the bunker, but he was certain it was later than either of them should have been awake. “Everything okay?”

“I think so,” she said quietly.

“Okay,” he murmured, letting her get whatever she needed out of her system. She’d called for a reason, and he was certain it wasn’t an easy reason, given her hesitance to speak. He missed the sound of her voice, and while it could be argued that this wasn’t the healthiest thing for either of them right now, maybe the sound of her voice would let him sleep a little longer tonight.

“I’m sorry, I-”

“Felicity, it’s okay to call,” he assured her, cutting her off when she started to apologise.

She sniffed, and he wondered if she was quite as steady as she wanted him to believe. He didn’t believe it for a second. It was a huge jump from not wanting to see him to calling him in the middle of the night. “We’re saying okay a lot,” she said eventually.

Oliver huffed out a laugh, slipping his eyes closed as he allowed her voice to wash over him. “Yeah, we are.”

“I just wanted to thank you,” she whispered through the phone when the tones had lightened.

“Felicity…”

“I know you told me I don’t have to, but I do,” she insisted. “I do have to.”

“I’m always going to do what’s needed to keep you safe, Felicity,” he assured her.

“I know I say that I hate that, but…I appreciated it today,” she admitted.

It took him back to that moment when Darhk had her, when she was talking about marriage and insisting that he wasn’t the boss of her. “I don’t always do it in the best way, I know, but that’s always my intention.”

“I’m grateful for it,” she acknowledged.

“You’re welcome.”

Their call fell silent for a moment, and in that moment he could forget that he was holding a phone, or that he was in a separate apartment from her. It was as if she were lying right beside him, just out of arm’s reach, about to sleep. “I was worried you wouldn’t,” she admitted.

His brow furrowed. “You thought I wouldn’t be there?”

“I walked away,” she prompted him.

“You needed me,” he pointed out. “That’s all that matters.”

“That simple?”

“Yeah,” he nodded to himself. “That part will always be simple.”

Her breath hitched again as she inhaled, her voice tighter when she spoke next. “Why don’t you hate me?”

He took a breath, debating whether he should answer that honestly. But another lie, even one to make the situation easier, wouldn’t help him. “Because I love you.”

“Right,” she swallowed.

When she fell silent again, he tried not to be disappointed. He didn’t deserve to hear it back, he knew, but after she’d handed his ring back and assured him that she still loved him, part of him had hoped that she may say the words again. Coming to her rescue once didn’t earn that love back, though.

But maybe it earned him the right to try.

“Felicity, I know you’re not ready to come back, or to talk things through but… but I am always going to show up for you,” he told her when she continued in her silence. “You’re still an important part of my life, and I know things are…” he sighed, squeezing his eyes shut. “…whatever they are, but you never have to worry about me not being there.”

“We’re talking now,” she pointed out.

“Yeah, I guess we are,” he agreed.

“I wanted to ask you over. For us to talk about things properly.”

His heart jumped into his throat when he took in her words.

“But not tonight,” he finished for her.

“Mom encouraged a bit too much wine to trust my decision making right now,” she laughed without her usual touch of humor. He wasn’t surprise that Donna ended the stressful day with a glass of wine, but Felicity was far more a Netflix-and-ice-cream stress reliever. “Plus, Thea just called me and said you were hurt so…”

“I’m okay,” he assured her softly.

He heard her hesitance to accept that answer to the point that he could almost sense her biting her lip. “I’ve seen what those bees do to people,” she reminded him.

“Curtis assured me these will pass in a few days,” he said, wincing internally at what he would have to endure to do that. He hoped it was as painful as Curtis had promised him, but he wasn’t sure anyone had first hand experience with robotic bee larvae. “No permanent damage.”

“Promise?” she checked.

“No more lies,” he said quietly.

“Okay,” she whispered, taking in a slow breath and releasing it loudly. It wasn’t as much a huff as a warning of an oncoming yawn. She was exhausted, and the wine was probably making things worse.

“You should get some sleep,” he suggested.

“But we’re talking,” she grumbled reluctantly.

He wanted to agree with her, because the sound of her voice after so long was like his first taste of chocolate when he came home from Lian Yu. “It’s late, you’ve had a long day,” he reminded her.

“Oh,” she murmured her disappointment.

She wanted to talk to him, he realised. She wanted to talk to him, to lie awake and get everything off her chest so that her mind was free to speak. She didn’t just want to talk, she wanted to talk to him, and that meant more than he knew how to explain. He’d never been good at putting his adoration for her into words, but when he did, he made sure to go the whole nine yards.

She wanted to talk to him. He definitely wanted to talk to her.

So he took a chance.

“But maybe tomorrow, if you still want to talk, we can get some lunch,” he suggested.

“Yeah?” she asked quietly, her voice hopefully.

His confirmation wasn’t needed, so he let his voice fall softer, his head sinking back as he reached for the blanket that draped over the side of the couch. “Get some sleep, let me know in the morning.”

“Okay,” she whispered again.

“Okay.”

When the call disconnected her allowed the blanket to fall over him. Usually he didn’t concern himself with it, but after hearing the warmth of her voice it only accentuated the cold of the apartment.

But he had hope.


	124. What's Left Behind

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 1022bridgetp said: Hi! I don’t know if you take prompts but I send it anyway :) Olicity is spending a lot of time together now that they are a team and Oliver and Felicity is in a happy place again. He is afraid to ask her out on a date even though she is looking forward to it. Felicity loses her patience and asks him out instead.

“You know what, I think we might be done for the night.”

“Hmm?” Oliver glances in the direction of the computer screens, tearing away his focus from the unused outfit displays before him. He’s spent far too long looking at the dummy’s containing the suits of Speedy, Spartan and the Black Canary - only his own looking anything less than stiff and far too cared for. There’s still dust on the shoulders and hood of his suit from the building site he’d been checking through the previous evening (or the early hours of this morning) but theirs were clean, ready to use but…abandoned.

“The facial recognition program is back up and running, which was the last program I was fighting with,” Felicity continues, rising from her desk and moving over to join him where he stands before the display units. “Technologically speaking, we are back in business, unless you count the replacement…you know what, it doesn’t matter,” she broke off, waving her hands dismissively as she draws to a stop beside him. “Everything’s working.”

“Really?” he asks.

“Don’t sound so surprised. This isn’t my first time rebuilding a severely damaged vigilante hideout,” she points out with a gesture to the space around her. It may not have been her first time, but it’s her first time rebuilding one that wasn’t essentially an Ikea flatpack version of a vigilante lair. This is a proper hideout for them, something secure and fully functioning, and now she’s made it even more spectacular than it originally was.

“I suppose not,” he agrees with a smaller smile. “You’ve done a great job.”

“We did a great job,” she corrects him. “Need I remind you I didn’t do any of the heavy lifting.”

“Not by your own choice, if I remember,” he recalls with the closest he’s come to a laugh in some weeks at the memory of her trying to shift far too much equipment on her own before she’d given in and allowed him to help her.

“Well, you were right, I couldn’t do it all on my own, and we do work better as a team,” she admits without a hint of disdain in her tone.

“Yes, we do,” he agrees.

For a moment they remain in silence, her eyes following his to the vigilante suits before them. He knew he wasn’t alone in missing them. They try to cling to the idea that Digg will be home for the holidays, according to Lyla, but it seems so far away regardless, and that Thea insists on having a girls night with Felicity every Thursday and Oliver stops by every few days and meets her for lunch. It’s not the same as them all being together down here together.

And Laurel…well, she’ll never be down here again.

“Speaking of, what next?” Felicity chirps, breaking his thoughts.

“What do you mean?” he asks.

Her hand waves towards the outfits. “I assume that we got this place back to working potential for a reason.”

She’s waiting for their next goal, waiting for his announcement of what he wants to achieve next. She’s waiting for his lead, so that she can stand right beside him as she always has. Because his missions are never just his own anymore, as much as he likes to think so at times. “We don’t exactly have a team anymore, Felicity,” he reminds her quietly.

“We’re still here,” she points out.

“Yeah,” he sighs.

She turns away from the display units, watching him in that way of hers that is so casual but so searching. It reminds him of Italy, of them sitting in a restaurant as a thunderstorm started and Felicity taking one look at him before she was asking if they could take their food to go as she wasn’t feeling well, and leading him by the hand back to their hotel before the main bulk of the storm had his heart pounding for three hours while he lay in her arms.

“What’s wrong?” she asks.

“Noth-”

“-and don’t say nothing,” she cuts him off quickly.

He sighs, bringing one hand up through his hair before he speaks. “Part of me thought that by the time we’d fixed this place up, everyone would be back,” he confesses.

“Oliver…” she whispers.

“Foolish hope.”

She tries for a small smile, her hand shifting to his arm so fleetingly. “No hope is foolish.”

But he doesn’t agree, turning away from the outfits and bracing his arms on the bars that surround Felicity’s computer area. “I can’t help but think of how we just upped and left them behind last summer,” he tells her.

He hears her step behind him. “It wasn’t like that, Oliver, and you know it.”

“Whatever it was like, we left, and they stayed,” he points out to her.

This time he feels it clearly, the palm of her hand pressed between his shoulder blades that cements him to this moment, where he can open up to her and not feel his soul dragging in the other direction - to know that she was right, he can speak even the harshest, darkest thoughts in his mind and that she’ll listen, that she’ll hear him and know him and still be beside him when he’s done. “You aren’t here alone, Oliver,” she whispers.

“I know, I’m not saying that. I-”

“You’re worried they won’t come back,” she finishes for him. She feels closer, as if she’s resisting the temptation to place her forehead just above the space her hand feels, like she used to. “Oliver, that’s their choice. They respected our choice to leave.”

“Until they dragged us back.”

“We chose to come back.”

“I still think we chose wrong,” he mutters. Her hand withdraws straight away, dropping from the space that had been spreading warmth through his body. He turns, finding her still relatively close to him but not as close as he wishes she was. His hands find his hair again, tugging in frustration before they drop to his sides. “Sorry, that wasn’t fair.”

“Hey, we’re doing okay, right?” she asks quietly.

“Of course,” he assures her.

“I know it can’t be easy living together after…”

Oh yes, that. The living arrangements.

They’ve been telling themselves that it’s temporary, him staying at the loft with her, but as each day passes it doesn’t feel like a fleeting arrangement. She hadn’t stood for him insisting that some areas of the bunker were habitable, and had taken him back to the loft until things were repaired, but he hasn’t wanted to go back, not even when Thea pointed out there was a guest room at hers he could use, or could stay in a hotel… at the end of the day, he was with her as much as he could be, and that was enough.

“Felicity, it’s fine,” he stops her. “It’s nice, actually.”

“It is?” she asks.

“You’ve always helped me feel…grounded, even when we aren’t together,” he tells her. “With everything that’s happened, that’s helped me a lot.”

“Well, we definitely need our Mayor with his feet on the ground,” she agrees, the grin somewhat dampened by her attempt to lighten the situation. “Unless he’s jumping around on rooftops of course.”

But her attempt works, and it pulls not just a smile from him but another gentle laugh. “I’ve missed this.”

“What?”

“You and me. Down here.”

Felicity’s smile matches his. “Feels like old times, huh?”

“The good old days,” he nods.

“Oliver…” she starts, wringing her hands from him.

“Yeah?”

“Are you ever going to ask me?”

“Ask you what?”

“To dinner.”

For a moment, he can’t help but think he’s entirely misunderstood the intent. He’s seconds away from telling her that she did say it was her to pick up the takeout today so why should she have been waiting for him to ask what she wanted, but then he realizes what she is asking him, and his stomach seems to drop out from within him.

Because they’ve been down here for weeks on end fixing the place up, and they live together, and any time he isn’t in his office in city hall, they’re together. They eat together, sleep in rooms opposite one another, and really, this was always going to be the resolution. They were always going to find their way back to one another, especially with their living situation, and he always assumed they’d flow together naturally, not jump back into things like this.

“Oh,” he whispers.

Her face quickly comes over with a mortified expression, writing her hands even more furiously as the words burst out without her control. “Unless…you weren’t thinking about asking me and I was completely misreading the signals. Which sounds a lot like something I’d do. Maybe there weren’t even any signals to read and -”

There it is. There’s the natural side of this.

He’s smiling as he places his hands over her shoulders, urging the words to a stop. “Felicity. Take a breath,” he encourages her.

She does, closing her eyes for a moment to try and center herself before she speaks again. “It’s just that I’d like to,” she explains. “Go to dinner with you.”

“You would?” he asks.

She bites her lip as she nods. “I’ve been waiting for you to ask.”

“I didn’t want to overstep any boundaries,” he says with a deflated laugh.

“I didn’t realize we’d set any boundaries,” she points out, and she’s right because the only house rules they’ve set is that he has to wear a shirt when making the coffee because that should have been a sign all on its own.

“My own boundaries,” he clarifies.

“Oh,” she murmurs, not unlike himself moments before.

“I had a lot of things I needed to work through before I stood a chance at…getting a positive answer to that question,” he reminds her.

“And now?”

And now, he’s the interim mayor. Now, he’s erased the video he was initially sending to his son and replaced it with one that Samantha can show him whenever he decides he’s ready to see it. Now, he’s seeing a counsellor on Thursday afternoons between his meetings to talk about the losses he’s experienced in the recent years and why that keeps him closed off from the woman he wants to be with.

Now, he’s changing. He’s growing.

“Why don’t we talk about it over dinner?” he suggests.

Her face breaks out in a delighted grin, one that he’s missed and one that fills his stomach with the nervous sensation of butterflies that reminds him of how she’d once tapped her fingers over his stomach. “I think that’s a great idea,” she nods.

“Do you still like Italian?” he checks, a few moments later when they’re reaching for their coats and heading out for the night.

“I love Italian.”

And while so much has changed, some things never will.


	125. From This Day Forward

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> birdscomeflying said: Hi! I was listening to one of my favorite songs, First In Line - Matthew Mayfield and all I could think about was Olicity. Soo, a fic based off that song :-) (I need some fluff ok) 
> 
> blacksnowflake7 said: Promt where Oliver tells Felicity about the first time he saw her (when he was supposed to be un Nanda Parbat) in their wedding vows.
> 
> turn-thy-paige said: Oliver and Felicity’s first dance as Mr. And Mrs. Queen
> 
> pulpklatura said: Would you be amenable to writing what you think Oliver and Felicity’s wedding vows would be? :)

Oliver,

Despite everything we’ve been through in the last four years, I’m glad we’re here today. We wouldn’t be standing here, getting married, without everything that we’ve endured behind us. It’s what’s made us strong, it’s what’s made me love you. I’d never have believed that someone like you could have ever loved me, but the way that you make me feel… not just how loved you make me feel… it’s incredible. I could conquer the world as long as you were at my side. You are my strength, my motivation, my very reason for being.

You found me and raised me up to be the woman I am today, a woman I’m proud to be, and I can’t ever thank you enough for that. I promise that I will try to be as inspiring for you as you have been for me. I will love you without condition, more every single day. I will laugh with you when you’re happy, support you when you’re not.

I said once that I wasn’t the type of person to lose myself in a man, and I think that’s still true. I don’t feel lost with you, I feel home. Home with you is everywhere - a passenger seat, a basement, a motel, our first home, our last home…

So today I’m not just marrying you. I’m here telling you that I take you as my best friend, as my partner, as my soulmate. You’ve become my whole life, and I couldn’t be happier or more excited to spend the rest of it with you as my husband.

—

My dearest Felicity,

As we stand here today, for real this time, I realised I probably did the wrong thing by reading out my vows last time. What could I say to you today to compare to telling you that you’re my always, my everything. So I want to tell you about how you made me feel, the first time I saw you.

Because the first time I saw you is not the first time you saw me.

While I was gone, everything was darkness. I don’t need to tell you about the life I lead before I came home, or the person it turned me into. At a time I felt more lost, I was home. I came here. I was sent back here and told to stay away from my family, from anyone who might know me…and I found you. You told a photograph of me that I was cute, and that it was a shame I was dead. You kept talking to yourself even when you realised that’s what you were doing and…you were life.

You were a burst of life when I felt there was nothing left for me. You saved me from the darker side of myself, even just for a moment. It was just the first of many times you’d do that for me. I think that because of the life that I lead, I could only be with someone that I really care about. Someone who knows every part of me, who turns my weaknesses into strengths, someone who is my greatest supporter, the conscience in my ear, my partner.

Felicity, it’s no secret that I don’t always know what I’m doing with us. But I know that I want to spend the rest of my life loving you, supporting you, laughing with you… I want to die an old man with you at my side, with a lifetime of memories behind us. I promise you today that I will cherish each moment that life allows me to be at your side, that I will speak when words are needed and share the silence when they’re not, that I will have the patience that love demands, and to always call you my home, my love, my wife.

I don’t see today as the start of our journey together, because that started a long time ago. But if this is our next step, I can’t wait to take it as your husband.

—

“How many times have you almost cried today?”

She’s tucked her head against his shoulder, and his has tilted to the side. It didn’t take longer than a moment for them to fall into the optimum position for gazing at each other as they swayed to the music around them. Oliver can’t help but smile at her as she teases him, dipping his head to brush his nose against hers. It’s easy to lose himself in her as they dance, and to ignore the friends and family that watch them.

“Three times,” he confesses quietly.

“So that’s the dress, the vows…” she counts off, arching her eyebrow afterwards. “What’s the third time?”

“I had a moment this morning,” he mutters, and she watches him more curiously. “I was stood there, watching Digg with Sara and it struck me… that’s going to be our life now. We’re husband and wife, we’re Mr. and Mrs Queen, and it was…”

“Overwhelming,” she finishes for him, squeezing her arms lightly around his neck to tug his lips down to hers, “to realise that next we’ll be Mom and Dad.”

“Yeah,” he breathes out, closing the gap between them and kissing her so deeply it took catcalls from their guests to break them apart.

Once they’ve caught their breath, Felicity’s eyes flicker to the side, stolen away by the distraction of Sara’s wild laughter. “That’s what you want, isn’t it?” She asks, turning back to him with a smile. “Us, having kids.”

“When we’re ready,” he nods.

“But you’re ready,” she points out, to which he can’t deny. “So, maybe when we go back to Ivy Town, we start working on filling one of those guest rooms?” She suggests.

Oliver’s eyebrows raise, a hopeful smile crossing his features that mimics the slight squeeze of her waist. “Really? You…want to try?”

But she winces, drawing back slightly. “Oh. You meant… trying… for a baby. Oh, I probably should have been more specific, because I meant actually filling the room, like with furniture.”

He tries to cover it, hiding his flicker of disappoint with an “Oh. Right. I…of course.”

She bites her lip. “Because…we’re going to need furniture for it. And we’re already running out of time, so I hope you’re as good at assembling furniture as you have been before, because building a crib is pretty important and I’m pretty sure you’ve never done that before.”

They aren’t swaying any more, merely standing still while holding one another. His hand ghosts up her side to cup her cheek as the hope returns to his gaze. “Felicity…”

“Yeah?” She whispers, suddenly more nervous than she was to talk down the aisle earlier that day.

“Are we having a baby?” He asks her, a grin slowly spreading across this face.

“Yep,” she replies, snapping her lips on the ‘p’ as she matches his elation.

He doesn’t hesitate, lifting her up and spinning her as a true cliche display of his happiness. Of course, it’s not just his happiness. It’s been the excited flutter in her stomach for the past two weeks, the secret she’d kept to himself to give him this gift on the happiest day of their lives. It was killing her to keep it a secret, but it had been worth it to see this true joy on his face.

The future they’ve sworn to isn’t all that far away from them now. Now they’ll spend their honeymoon celebrating this new person they’re creating, moving back to the house they never fully let go out, becoming people they’ve always been.

Miss Smoak and Mr Queen.

Overwatch and the Green Arrow.

Mr and Mrs Queen

Mom and Dad


	126. Destinations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A little Olicity travel drabble inspired by a chat with @smoakd

The first time they fly together, they jump onto the first flight out of Coast City that will take them far away from home comforts, and end up unable to sit together. It’s not ideal, not with her afraid of heights and not the most confident flyer in general, but it’s only a two hour flight and he’s sat right behind her so at least they’re close.

When the flight takes off, he leans forward, placing his hand through the gap between the seats to comb his fingers through the longer lengths of gold that fall onto her shoulders. After, he keeps his hand drawing circles on her shoulder until the plane levels out. He’s not sure how he’s going to cope with a two hour flight with her in front of him, rather than a long drive with her right at his side.

As soon as he can, he’s making an incredulous bargain with the gentleman in the seat next to Felicity so that they can swap seats. It takes a few minutes but he relents, and Oliver slides into the vacant spot. Within moments, Felicity has her head against his shoulder, her arms wrapped around his, and everything feels a little more at peace.

–

There are a lot of kids on their flight to Italy. It’s not a long one, but every hour with the unseen toddler some rows behind them makes their journey an eternity. He doesn’t blame the unhappy kid, because they’re exhausted from the endless delays in the airport as well, but it’s an almost unbelievable difference from the woman across the aisle from them.

She has her toddler sleeping in her lap, the young child nestled against her as she talks softly to the man at her side. Oliver can’t help but allow his eyes to be drawn to them; to the matching gold bands on their hands, to the unconscious way their bodies gravitate to each other and their child. Part of him wants to ask where they’re going. He suddenly wants to know whether they’re going to a family gathering, a birthday, an anniversary, a family vacation with their daughter…

He turns back to settle more comfortably in his seat, perhaps for a moment of rest before the descent starts, and he sees it.

She’s watching them too.

They sit together, watching this happy couple with their beautiful child, and for a moment their eyes meet, an expression is shared. It breaks almost immediately, but the meaning behind it is undisputed.

_One day._

–

She falls asleep with her head in his lap halfway to Bali. This is the big trip, this is the three week destination with the fourteen-hour flight from their last trip and they’ve been up for hours talking about sandy shores and crystal clear water. An hour after take off, Felicity’s fast asleep on a balled up sweatshirt she’s using as a pillow, and as his fingers coast over her spine he meets the eyes of a man in a similar position with his young daughter across the aisle.

They glance at one another, and with a smile that hitches on one side of his lips, Oliver can’t help but remark; “they grow up so fast, don’t they?”. The father across the way matches his smile, orders a drink from the stewardess, but Oliver merely tips his head back against the headrest and focuses all his attention on the woman he loves.

—

She can sleep anywhere, he’s learned that about her very early into their travels. She can sleep with her head against a car window, in the most uncomfortable motel beds, once at the table of Big Belly restaurant, and as he later finds out - against the nearest available surface at any time they stop moving.

Their four-a.m. flight is an eye opener that makes them both wonder how they’ve survived on such little sleep for the last few years. It turns out sleeping is a hobby that they can really learn to love (okay, maybe they’re not _always_ sleeping) but packing all night and waiting around for that flight is when Oliver learns that shuffling a sleepy Smoak through security is about as nerve wracking as watching her stumble slightly in her heels and wondering if she’s going to face plant the floor.

She falls asleep against his shoulder in the queue, against the wall she leans against when he goes to the bathroom, against the counter of the store he buys their travel snacks from, and even sat on the toilet as he finds out from an elderly lady he asks to check on his girlfriend when she’s been gone for twenty-five minutes.

—

When they decide to take time away to reconnect a year later, Bali’s the only destination they can both agree on. Of course, there’s plenty of other beautiful places that they want to visit but with everything they’ve been through it feels as much like home as Star City ever did.

They fly coach, centre seats because neither are all that bothered by the window seat, and they end up with a woman and her young son in the seats beside them. He’s no trouble though, and after a few hours playing on his games console, he falls asleep and leans against Felicity’s thigh in the process.

She doesn’t even look up from her tablet to notice until the mother’s rushing to shift his small body away, apologising for him disturbing her, but she assures her that it’s fine. She tells the mother to let him sleep, that he’s not in her way at all, and Oliver’s hand finds her other knee out a sudden and unrelenting need to communicate his adoration for her.

Because they’re almost back on track. And he wonders if their next trip will bring them closer to that being their own child in her lap.

–

The delays at LAX are the worst he’s encountered, and in the end he decides to hire a car for them to get back to Star City. He queues for over an hour, granted that it’s Christmas eve and everyone wants to get home for the holidays, but when he finally gets the keys to their rental he goes back to the seating area where Felicity’s waiting with their bags.

She’s sat on the ground, surrounded by a collection of children of varying ages that have hooked up their electronic games devices to some kind of emergency charger. More than that, she seems to be aware of all of them around her, all talking to one another, and he realises that the love of his life has started some kind of synchronised gaming system for this group of children that are suffering the frustrations of a delayed holiday vacation.

The parents around them aren’t phased by the fact that their children are in the care of a complete stranger; Felicity’s something of a well-known name in the country now thanks to her work on paralysis recovery and medical technology. She’s working with army veterans and prosthetic needs and together, her and Curtis are revolutionising their field.

One of the parents comes up beside him with another set of keys, a man he recognises from the rental car line and looks at the group with a heavy sigh. “Which one is yours?” he asks with all the hesitance of an exhausted parent who has to take a distracted child back to the chaos of disrupted travel.

Oliver glances at the mess of children on the floor, the suitcases and coats used as makeshift seating and the chaos of cables and charges that run between them all.

“The one in the middle with the glasses.”

—

They’ve been in the air for six hours so far, and it’s perhaps the longest flight of their life. Because it’s their honeymoon they’ve sprung for business class, which is a rare indulgence with commercial travel, but this time they aren’t relaxing, they aren’t using their time to talk about their trip, because everything is focused on the sickness.

She never gets airsick, and yet the queasiness she’s started feeling in the airport quickly spirals into a vomiting marathon that doesn’t seem to end at first. Eventually, when they’ve stopped flagging down the stewardesses for more sick bags, another glass of water, another wet cloth, she looks so pale and exhausted that he almost considers getting a flight straight back home and delaying their trip.

“I _never_ get airsick,” she repeats for the umpteenth time as he rubs her thigh.

“What if you’re not sick?” he suggests quietly.

“This isn’t food poisoning,” she shakes her head.

And then they both hear baby crying behind them in the front row of economy and they both still in their movements as their eyes fly to each other. They haven’t been careful in the run up to their wedding, and it’s been easy to blame the exhaustion on the wedding prep and the extra emotions on that they’ve finally become husband and wife, but in that moment there’s the possibility of something more.

“ _Oh_ ,” she whispers, with a tremble across the one word that’s filled with nerves.

“ _Yeah_ ,” he breathes back, moving his hand to squeeze around hers.

The rest of the flight is relatively quiet, both too afraid to question the possibility that maybe, just maybe, they’re about to become one of those families they’ve always watched across the plane. But when they land three hours later, they hit their hotel room with anticipation, and they spend the first night of their honeymoon overwhelmed by discovery of their unborn child.


	127. All That I Do (Is To Make You Proud)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> tamarbaum said: Prompt: Olicity established going to felcity’s highschool reunion and everybody’s reaction including mean girls

“Stop fidgetting.”

She didn’t stop shuffling as they waiting outside the entry doors to the hotel banquet hall they were waiting to enter. She wasn’t happy about being back in the city, let alone having to attend her high school reunion, but at least she had Oliver at her side to support her. That didn’t mean she didn’t have a compulsive need to adjust her dress every twenty seconds.

“I’m not…”

“…fidgetting? Yes, you are,” he pointed out, taking her distracted hands and squeezing them in his own.

She sighed, wishing she felt as at home in her current attire as he seemed to be in his tux. “I just think it’s a waste of time being here,” she decided, her eyes glancing over the tacky decor and the compulsory nametag she’d been forced to wear. She never thought she’d feel disgust at the name ‘Smoak’ emblazoned across her nametag, but she since taking the name of Queen at the start of the year, she far preferred her marital name.

“Felicity…” he started, but she cut him off with a sigh.

“I mean really, what does this accomplish?” She asked.

“It’s your high school reunion,” he pointed out.

“Which is useless,” she stressed.

He leaned forward, planting a kiss on her forehead. He’d already been scolded once about the possibility of ruining her lipstick before they’d even left the hotel room. “Felicity, it’s about showing off the amazing life you’ve made for yourself. If anyone’s got bragging rights here, it’s you. You’re running a major international company, helping to better lives, not to mention you’re a billionaire…”

Though his words made her smile, it didn’t last more than a few seconds before she was glancing hesitantly at the entrance. “I don’t want to be here, Oliver…”

“Let’s just go for an hour, show our faces, then we’ll go get some dinner somewhere,” he offered.

“And if I’m hungry now?” She tried.

“We have to be polite,” he reminded her.

“Ugh,” she complained, as he slid his arm through hers and winked at her.

“Come on. Don’t you want to show off your trophy husband?”

“I guess.”

–

They hadn’t made it more than thirty minutes before she was approaching him at the bar, setting her wine glass down with a little too much force and taking his hand. “I want to leave,” she decided hotly, her mind made up with a fierce determination.

Oliver caught the hidden distress on her face and curled his hand around hers, tugging her back to him. “Felicity?”

“Now, please,” she insisted, tugging his hand.

“Hey, slow down,” he urged, jumping to his feet and following her through the crowd.

“Let’s just get out of here, please,” she urged, pulling at his hand as she made her way to the exit. He could feel what she could as they walked - eyes on them, judgemental looks - and it made his stomach turn in thought of what she was experiencing right now, so much so that he merely curled his fingers around hers and walked ahead of her, shielding her from the looks.

“Okay, let’s go.”

–

The moment they left the hotel, she sat on one of the outside walls. Though her head was hung and her shoulders hunched, Oliver couldn’t help but admire her beauty with the hotel foliage behind her. It reminded him of the photograph on his desk from their wedding, with the Bali plant life surrounding her as she smiled up at him.

But this was no time for such admirations, and Oliver sat beside her, slipping his hand into hers as he nudged their shoulders together. “Come on, talk to me,” he murmured.

She shook her head, biting her lip as she did so. “I don’t know why I’m getting upset. They’re just stupid girls…”

“What happened?” Oliver asked, his voice softened.

She gave a one-shoulders shrug, tugging a hand out of his grasp to wipe beneath her eyes before she could ruin her makeup. “I heard what they were saying about me.”

“Felicity…”

“About how I get rich men into bed and seduce them into handover their assets–”

He cut her off quickly, turning her chin to face him with a gentle press of his fingers. “None of that is true, and you know that,” he stressed.

“I know, but that’s what people think of me, Oliver!” She pointed out, throwing her arm back towards the hotel.

“Do they matter to you?” He asked her.

“Oliver…”

“Those girls in there. Do the matter to you?” He repeated.

“Of course not,” she replied.

“Then who cares what they think?” Oliver pointed out, disregarding them all in a single moment. “Do you want to know what I think?”

She shook her head slightly, closing her eyes as her head dipped again. “You’re always going to think I’m wonderful,” she pointed out.

“Because you are,” he reminded her, cupping his hand to her cheek. “They’re not in love with you, and you’re not in love with them, so how can they ever know the real you that I’m privileged enough to share my life with.”

Her eyes raised to his, and with that came the glimmer of adoration that only existed when other emotions jumped to the surface. Oh, she loved him, he knew that, and she loved him so openly, but there was a special love that he caught in her first moments of waking, when she was tired and her love for him was so instilled in her very being that she didn’t even need to be fully conscious to love him. It was there in the middle of the night, when they fell into bed and into each other.

Felicity didn’t just love with her conscious mind. Felicity loved with the very fibres of her being.

“Oliver…” she started, pausing when he moved in to capture her lips for a toe-curling kiss.

When he parted from her, his hand remained on her cheek, his thumb tracing across her skin. “I think you’re remarkable,” he murmured softly. “I think you’re intelligent, and funny, and beautiful, and generous and…and so many things I get to spend the rest of my life telling you, and that they don’t get to be a part of your life is their loss. They bullied you and put you down, and it only made you stronger. Don’t let them take you down this time when you have so much to be proud of.”

She ducked her head again, sinking into the palm of his hand as she took a long, steadying breath. “You’re right, I know, it’s just…”

“Hard to hear,” he understood.

“Yeah.”

Oliver stood, holding out his hand to her. She looked at him questioningly and glanced back to the hotel momentarily, ready to argue if he was going to suggest going back inside. Instead, he shook his head. “C’mon, let’s go order some room service desserts and go to bed,” he tempted her.

“I love you,” she answered as she slipped her hand into his and let him pull her to her feet. This time, her smile was genuine.

And when she was curled up in a hotel bed, with her husband attacking her fork with his own for a share of the desserts they were sampling, she realised knew she was happy with her life regardless of what others thought.


	128. Mistaken Identity

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anonymous prompt: “I made a mistake.”

“I’m sorry, Oliver. I made a mistake.” **  
**

Those words roll around in his mind with such intensity that it makes him recall the effects of Vertigo. He’s not sure what he wants to do first - scream, throw up, punch a wall, sit down - but all he can feel is a twisting nausea in his stomach that settles into an icy cold in the pit of his gut. He tries to swallow the feeling down as it rises up his throat, but all it does is reveal the tightness in his chest when he wants to take a breath afterwards.

But he has to react, because people are looking at him. People are waiting for him to react.

Thea’s stepping forward and speaking, but he can’t hear the words that are coming out of her mouth. He doesn’t even try. Felicity is the only one who moves closer to him, places her hand on the center of his back as if her tiny palm could bring his entire world back into focus, but all it does is remind him that her concern means one thing; that _this_ is really happening.

So all he can do is stare ahead of him, stare at the scarlet speedster who’s never looked more guilty, more afraid of him.

“The DNA test…I made a mistake,” he repeats.

The DNA test.

The stolen hair.

The sandy-haired boy who loves the Flash.

William.

_I made a mistake._

“You made a mistake,” Oliver repeats his words, in a tight voice that sounds unlike his usual tone.

“Oliver, I’m _so_ sor-”

“He’s not…?”

“No.”

 _No_. That’s all it takes to confirm everything. No, William isn’t his son. No, his mother didn’t successful pay off a woman to hide his child. No, he isn’t a father.

He isn’t a father.

Barry’s trying to apologize again, he can faintly hear it in the background of the rushing sound that pounds through his brain. It’s like the nights he wakes but can’t fight the memories, because he’s thinking about every moment he spent with that little boy, thinking about how it felt when Darhk had him and that undeniable urge to slay the world at his feet to get him back, thinking about how much it hurt to not have the memory of his first steps, first words…

…but those memories don’t belong to him. Because William isn’t his son.

But the memories of what happened after William became a reality…those are his.

Because he’ll always remember what it was like to watch Felicity take off that ring and place it on the table, how it felt to watch her walk away from him. He’ll always remember the hurt in her eyes, and how it felt to lie in their bed without her beside him. He’ll always remember the way she had told him that she was already gone, made it clear there was no hope for them.

“I lost everything for this…for _him_ ,” he mutters into the quiet of the bunker, everyone around him far too afraid to speak. Barry looks on the verge of bolting from the room, and if Oliver wasn’t so confused by the pain in his gut, he’d be certain that the younger vigilante had every reason to be so afraid of him. “And now I have… _nothing_? Because you _made a mistake_?”

Barry opens and closes his mouth as if the words escape him, but he doesn’t attempt to replace them. All that happens is a flex of the fingers that rest against his spine, a gentle reminder that Felicity is there, that she has his back like he knows he can always trust her to.

This time when he swallows he tastes the bile that’s threatening to choke him.

“Everything I did for my family, and now I don’t even have one?”

“Oliver, I’m _sor_ -”

“How long?” he demands, taking a step towards Barry. “How long have you known?”

As soon as he’s got his answer, he leaves.

–

Barry’s known since December. Felicity stays to hear the rest before she seeks him out, and she can’t imagine how much Oliver’s hurting if it grinds at her soul as much as it does. She finds him hanging around by the waterfront, not far from the spot where he proposed to her seven months ago, sat on a low step with his head in his hands.

He could have been spared this, they both could have. December. Barry had wanted to tell him, apparently, but then Felicity had been hurt and he didn’t want to give Oliver more to worry about. Then everything had spiraled with Darhk, and Zoom, and…

“It makes sense now,” Oliver murmurs after she lowers herself to the step at his side, her shoulder brushing against his as the chill from the concrete seeps through the material of her skirt.

“Samantha’s hesitance?” she asked.

“Darhk took William from his own home,” he points out, his eyes fixed on the ground as he drops his hands from his temples and twists them before himself instead. “The boy I thought was my son was in _his_ city and Barry wasn’t even…” Oliver breaks off, shaking his head with a humorless burst of laughter that turns into something far angrier. She’s used to this, the way his rage can slip over him in an instant when it comes to the safety of someone he cares about. “If _his_ son was in _my_ city I’d be checking in on him every day, the same way I do Sara’s daycare, because _that’s_ what you do for the families of people you love.”

She doesn’t doubt that. She knows with a deep certainty that if Oliver would move the earth to protect family, and not just his own. Because this is the Oliver who emails Diggle every day even though he’s still with his unit and they may not hear from him any more than once a week, Oliver who always calls to make sure Donna’s flight landed safely and picks her up from the airport, Oliver who checks under Sara’s best for monsters whenever he visits.

But something in his example is new, and she tilts her head as she watches him.

“You watch Sara’s daycare?” she asks.

She sees it flicker across his face before he nods. She wonders if this is something he’s always done, or if this is something he’s done since William became a part of his life. Does it make him feel more like a father if he’s protecting a child, because his was so far away?

“It calms me down,” he confesses a moment later.

When his hands twists in front of him, she reaches hers out and wrap hers around his. It’s hardly a comparison, her tiny digits clasped around the expanse of his fists, but his movement does settle to something that reminds her of Bali shores at midnight. And she understands, she does, because Sara Diggle has that effect on the world. She’s spent many a night at Lyla’s since Digg shipped out, finding that unique peace that comes from Sara falling asleep in her arms during a third repetition of Goodnight Moon. She finds it helps on nights when Havenrock weighs heavily on her mind and it’s hard to distinguish the empty sheets beside her from the emptiness in her chest when she wakes choking down her cries.

“I used to check on you every night before we were together.”

His words don’t come as a surprise, though she can tell from his soft murmur that he intends them to. She always knew. It helped her sleep a little easier to feel the weight of his presence around her, to know that even on the most dangerous nights there wasn’t a single part of the city that could hurt her, not while he watched over her. She’d once wanted to start leaving him snacks, drinks, slowly lure him inside in a way that a love story might start, but she’d also know that wasn’t what either of them needed - all he’d needed was to know that she was safe, and all she’d needed was a good night’s sleep.

“And now?” she asks, tapping her pinkie finger against his knuckle.

There’s a ghost of a smile on his lips as the rest the side of their heads together, an unconscious movement they learned by heart last summer and can’t resist the muscle memory when he needs that soft touch so badly. “I still do. I can’t sleep until I know you’re safe.”

She hums lightly, her tone turning almost teasing as she tightens her hand against his. “Is Mom’s fire escape the only place you can sleep?” she asks him. “Because she’s almost caught you twice.”

His smile is more of a grimace as he turns his head, leaning into her offered embrace. When his forehead forehead presses against the side of her head and she feels the resignation in his exhale which it hits the side of her neck. Without conscious thought, her hand traces up and rubs at his forearm.

“You’ll be a great dad someday, Oliver,” she whispers into what little remains of the empty space between them that seems to shrink by the minute. “We’ll get there.”

“We?” he chances her response, and he may hide the hesitant tremor in his tone but she feels it in his breath against her skin. He can never hide anything from her when he’s this close.

“We aren’t over for good, you know that,” she reminds him.

Those words have never been said, she knows. She knows that she’s given him endless reasons to believe otherwise, but she’s never once doubted that they’d find their way back to each other. She suspects he feels the same from the way that he drops his head full to the crease between her neck and her shoulder and draws a deep breath, as if he’s trying to bring back the vivid scents and sensations that have been slowly leaving him the longer they’re apart.

“I miss you so much, Felicity,” he breathes.

“Come on,” she murmurs into the top of his head before she starts to stand, bringing him with her without any argument from his exhausted form. She knows how draining it is to let someone go when there were so many hopes for the future. “Let’s go home.”


	129. Make It Stop

It’s horrible. It’s supposed to be a beautiful, precious moment, welcoming their firstborn child into the world.

And it’s brutal.

It’s been thirty-one hours since Felicity’s water broke while they were having breakfast, and now nothing is the same. They read about the horrible labors, and assured themselves that they were prepared for anything and everything, but they could never have been prepared for this.

It’s agonizing for her. She’s screaming, she’s crying, and nothing he can do is stopping it. The gas and air seems to be doing nothing but halting her cries for a few precious inhales, but it’s all because of that terrible, bad luck.

They’re calling it back labor. The baby’s head is pressing on her spine. It’s quite possibly the worst thing that could happen in labor for a woman who relies on a delicate bio-stimulant to walk, and it’s implanted in that same section of her spine.

“Felicity, they said you could have the epidura–”

“ _NO_!” She wails for the fifth time.

She’s not making it easy for herself. She’s refusing the epidural, she’s insisting that she can’t - _won’t_ \- push. She’s terrified, and while he’s trying to be brave for her, Oliver can’t deny that he isn’t either. This is a moment they didn’t prepare for. This is something they’ve not taken into account - the idea that bringing their son into the world will be the hardest thing they ever do.

“Please, don’t make me feel like that again,” she cries into his shoulder.

They’ve been trying to prep her for the epidural for thirty minutes, to the point that they had the needle lined up and ready, her legs swung over the side of the bed. She’s buried her face in his shoulder, all ready for them to begin but then they’d mentioned the numbness and she’d shattered. He wants to promise her what she’s asking, but it’s what an epidural does. It doesn’t erase the pain, it numbs it, and that’s a wonderful thing for labor pain but she’s not just any woman.

She’s a woman who has lost the feeling in her legs and hips for an extended length of time, a woman who only gained it back by a pure miracle. She can’t go back to it, he understands that. He knows exactly what she’s afraid of, and what dark parts of her mind it’s going to take her back to.

“Hon, it’ll wear off,” he murmurs into her sweat-soaked temple, a small promise that he knows means nothing to her.

“ _Please_ ,” she begs, clenching her fingers against his back where she holds herself into him. “Please, don’t make me.”

“Felicity, sweetheart,” he pleads. “You’re in _so_ much pain, I just want you to be okay-”

“What if it wears off and I still can’t feel my legs?” she sobs into him, that unvoiced fear suddenly very vocal and the idea very frightening. Of course she’s afraid of that possibility. She’s afraid of any possibility that results in her going back to that wheelchair when she pushed so hard in the therapy sessions to get out of it.

“ _Felicity_ …”

“I can’t _do_ this,” she tells him again, the same thing she’s been telling him for fourteen hours. “I _can’t_ do this naturally, I _can’t_.”

“ _Yes_ , you can,” he tells her. “Curtis said the chip could handle it and the doctors wouldn’t let you if it wasn’t safe.”

“But what if-”

“ _Felicity_ …” he pulls back slightly, just enough to cradle her face in his hands. There are tears stains atop sweat stains, washing away each layer of personal strength she’s been building for months in preparation for this event. Oh, she’s exhausted. He knows this is the mother of his child in the throws of bringing his baby into the world and he should consider her beautiful and he does, but she’s also more tired than he’s ever seen her. She looks - in a word - _wrecked_. Emotionally, physically… this is destroying her, and he doesn’t like to see her like this. “You are in _pain_.”

“I want the C-Section,” she tells him with a shuddering sob. She’s trying to sound determined but it’s coming out as a desperate plea.

“Hon, we talked about this,” he reminds her, bringing her back to the nights that they talked about the possibility and her fingers would cast to the two bullet scars that traveled to her front while she thought about the vast scar patterns on her back. “You didn’t want another surgery.”

“But I want to run around with my son,” she cries, her voice crumpling again. “I _can’t_ break the chip, I can’t. I can’t do this naturally. I want to walk around with my baby in my arms, I don’t want to lose that, _Oliver_ , I can’t–”

“It’s okay, it’s _okay_ ,” he cuts her off, drawing her back to her shoulder. As he does, he sees another doctor coming into the room, the concerned glances being thrown around the room. It doesn’t look good, and he relishes in running his fingers through her sweat-soaked hair before he brings her face back to his. “Felicity, is this what you _really_ want?” he checks.

“I want to go _home_ ,” she replies through her tears, pushed beyond all her limits. “I don’t want to do this. I don’t _want_ to push, I _don’t_ want the epidural. I just want to go home.”

She lets her forehead drop against his chest. She’s shaking so hard against him that it’s transgressing through to his own limbs as he tries to bring her the comfort he can’t offer.

The doctors approach him. “Mrs. Queen, we need to-”

Oliver cuts them off immediately. “We want the C-section.”

–

Their son is born under general anesthesia. She doesn’t see him born, or hear his first cry, but she doesn’t mind, because she can wiggle her toes when she wakes up the same way that Tommy wiggles his. He moves his legs around so much that she knows that she made the right choice to be running around with him.


	130. Fix You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anonymous prompt: Hi, can you maybe do a miscarriage story? I know they’re super hard to write.  
> alexiablackbriar13 said: Dialogue Prompt: "I'm so sorry. I - I had no idea." (Gotta make it angsty Sam, gotta make it angsty)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And the tears come streaming down your face  
> When you lose something you can't replace  
> When you love someone, but it goes to waste  
> Could it be worse?  
> Coldplay - Fix You

Thea hadn’t ever been too fond of the bathroom facilities that had existed in the original foundry, for however long she’d used them. She wasn’t sure how the others had coped with those facilities for so long, but she was disappointed when they’d upgraded to the more secure bunker setting and still not received in the way of bathrooms. Sure, they at least had more than one shower unit now, and a few more private toilet cubicles, but it still mostly had the feel of a public restroom and that hadn’t appealed to Thea all that much.

Still, when she’d finally arrived to take over for her patrol, she’d been surprised to find the bunker empty. She moved towards the locker units to change her clothes when she heard Felicity shuffling around inside the restrooms. It was rare for Felicity to be anywhere other than the communications unit that stood in the centre of the bunker, especially when Oliver and the others were still out on patrol, but nothing seemed to be amiss, so Thea assumed she was probably taking a break after hearing that the team were on their way back. After all, when you gotta go, you gotta go.

A sound came out of the slightly ajar door that Thea couldn’t associate with anything other than pain and it drew her attention away from her jacket, which she discarded on her way towards the bathrooms, hoping that she’d just stubbed her toe or that she’d misheard. “Felicity?”

Only it wasn’t as simple as she’d hoped.

In the nearest stall, with the door wide open, Felicity was sat on the closed toilet lid, bone pale and covered in a sheen of sweat. Her hands were pressed down on her lower stomach, hunching her upper body forward, her eyes screwed shut as she focused on not making too much noise, only breathing in through steady gasps.

“Felicity…”

She jerked up at the sound of her name, even though Thea spoke softly, her eyes revealing not only how much pain she was in but just how badly she was trying to contain it. Thea didn’t hesitate, closing the few steps between them and bracing her hands on Felicity’s shoulders. “Hey, what’s going on?”

Felicity pulled back, wiping her hands over her face and shaking her head. “N-nothing. I’m...I’m just getting back to work.”

“Don’t lie to me,” Thea told her, her voice the perfect measure of calm and demanding that she’d inherited from her mother. “Let’s just get you some water, okay?”

Again, Felicity shook her head. “I don’t need water,” she insisted, biting down on her lower lip when her voice broke mid-sentence and she braced her hand on her lower stomach with a low groan.

Thea watched the action as her hand moved to rub between Felicity’s shoulders blades. “Cramps?” she asked, when she watched her friend relax momentarily with the movement of her hand.

“Thea,” Felicity murmured, raising her watery eyes to hers. “Can you call Oliver?”

“He’s on his way,” she assured her. “They’ll all be back soon.”

“No, I need you to call him,” she said firmly. 

It was then that Thea noticed the red stain spreading through the thighs on Felicity’s pants.

\---

Oliver made the five minute journey back to the bunker in just under two minutes after he’d disconnected the call from Thea. He was certain his heart had stopped somewhere during the brief conversation that he’d been dreading, but it was nothing compared to the twisting in his stomach as the elevator doors slid open and he was met with the empty bunker. The movement off to his side caught his attention, back in the far corner where they kept a few camp beds set up in case of emergencies. 

Thea was helping Felicity settle down on the edge of a cot that stood pushed against the back wall, the same one that Oliver used to frequent on nights when he wasn’t able to sleep beside her, only she wasn’t wearing the pink shirt and denim pants she’d been wearing when he’d left just an hour ago. Now, she was dressed in the spare pair of yoga pants she’d started keeping down in the bunker after a few too many coffee spill incidents, and one of Oliver’s spare t-shirts which swamped her thin frame. As soon as she was settled, Thea was moving and lifting a bundle of red-stained fabric into an empty bag, taking it to the trash where they usually disposed of medical waste.

His sister glanced up and met his eyes, and the tears were there before he knew how to stop them, a thick lump choking his throat as his gaze flickered to watch Felicity silently curl herself onto her side on the old cot. He remained still as Thea approached him, her hands twisting before her with her face just as ashen as Felicity’s. 

“Ollie, I’m so sorry,” she whispered, shaking her head. “I...I had no idea…”

But sorry didn’t ease any of the pain he felt in that moment.

_ It had started when he woke up in the middle of the night without any explanation other than that the bed was wet. Not the whole bed, just the part of the sheet where his hand was resting, draped over Felicity’s hip. Felicity was trembling, really trembling beyond control in the way that she was almost vibrating. It was as if she was plagued by a nightmare as bad as his, but then he realised she wasn’t even asleep. She wasn’t awake enough to be aware of anything, her eyes were barely open and unfocused, and one arm was pressing down on her stomach so firmly it looked as though it might burst through the skin. That was why his arm had fallen down onto the sheet…the wet sheet… _

“When did it start?” he asked, his voice a dull whisper as he barely looked at his sister. All he could see was Felicity.

“I got here about ten minutes ago. She was in a lot of pain, and she was bleeding…” Thea swallowed audibly, sparing him the rest of the details. “I helped her clean herself up as much as we could, and I offered her something for the pain but she said she doesn’t want anything.”

“We have painkillers,” Oliver mumbled. “They’re in her bag, the inside pocket,” he gestured blindly with his arm to the communications centre, where her bag always sat underneath the desk where he was sure she’d have left it.

“She doesn’t want them,” Thea repeated.

_ He felt as though he was watching in slow motion as he tore back the bedsheets that were thrown haphazardly over them. They were still only in their underwear as it was a warm night, but against the white sheet, he could instantly see the reason for her agony. Blood. The sheet had been tainted with so much blood Oliver could only liken it to seeing a man’s throat slit, but the stain was too low down for her to have been cut that way. Shaking hands had checked over every inch of her body for injury until his hand had joined hers over her stomach and he just…knew. _

“She’ll take them,” he insisted, though his voice was still soft. “Can you get some water, I’ll-”

“Ollie, you should take her to the hospital.”

“We’ve already been to the hospital,” he said, finally giving in to rubbing at his wet eyes as his shoulders sagged in defeat. “We were there last night. All night...we just…”

His head dipped, and Thea’s arms came up around him though the gesture gave him no comfort. “I’m so sorry, Ollie,” she whispered.

_ His voice had trembled as he whispered her name, pressing his face into her neck for a moment with a pained whine that he’d not heard from himself since his mother died, but this was worse than anything he’d ever felt before. The sound broke his own heart more than the fact that Felicity wasn’t making any sound except for the gasping breaths against the pain, and he realised with an agonising shattering of his heart that she wasn’t aware of what was happening. _

He heard the footsteps behind them and broke away from his sister’s arms. The team had arrived back, and he couldn’t face them right now. They didn’t need an audience for this. “You guys need to go, I can’t…”

“Is there anything we can do?” Thea asked, her eyes begging for a way they could help. 

_ He got out of bed, finding her clothes, a robe, anything to cover her dignity with, and ended up sliding one of his own sweaters and a pair of black pants onto her. The sweater dangled past her hips but she didn’t adjust it or play with the hem like she normally did. She barely noticed he was moving her until he had to physically remove her hands from her stomach to put them through the sleeves and her next sound had been a howl of pain. It was only when he went to dress himself that he realised his boxers were dripping with blood where she’d been pressed against him in bed, and that the tendrils on his thighs were nothing compared to the puddle she was sitting in. _

Rubbing his hand over his face again, he took a breath before he looked at Thea. “We just need some time,” he murmured quietly. 

He moved wordlessly past her after that, trusting the team to leave as he shrugged off his jacket and leather pants in one movement. He passed the clothes he’d discarded earlier on a bench and dressed as he moved, and by the time he’d finished pulling them up he was crouching at Felicity’s side, right by her head. “Hey, hon,” he murmured, one hand finding its way to stroke her hair as the other traced a path down her arm until it found her hand.

Felicity’s eyes opened, tears spilling from beneath them when they met his and he pressed a firm kiss to her forehead. “Oliver…”

_ Four hours later, a doctor told them what Oliver already knew. Felicity had miscarried their child in the night. They’d been so careful with discretion and a few early health scares that they hadn’t told anyone yet. They were making plans to tell people next week. She was sixteen weeks. Barely showing except for the very subtle curve that only Oliver had seen. _

“We need to get you home, okay?” he told her gently, as if he were comforting a sick child. The irony was not lost on him. “We need to get home, run you a bath, just the two of us, okay?”

“I can’t…” she gasped out, shaking her head and biting back a moan of pain. “Not yet.”

“Okay,” he whispered, gripping her hand. “We’ll wait until the worst passes first, okay?”

At her slight nod, he moved so that he was half-sitting, half-lying against the back wall, lifting her back into his arms. After some awkward movements, they settled together with her head resting on his chest, her small form cradled between his raised knees. He thought he’d feel somewhat better with her in his arms, the two of them closed off from the cruel world that had hurt them, but having her so close to him and not be able to do anything to help her pain was so much more.

“I’m sorry, I should have been here,” he spoke into her hair. “I should have stayed.”

“They said it would hurt, but…”

“I know. I know it hurts,” he whispered.

“It hurts so much, Oliver,” she whimpered.

He had no words that could soothe this pain, and merely reached down to rub circles on her stomach. As far as intimacy went, he’d learned early on in their relationship that stomach cramps were a regular part of their future, and usually it resulted in a few days a month of Felicity falling asleep sprawled on her side while Oliver rubbed soothing circles into her back or her stomach. This time she tried to shove his hand away, sounds of protest bursting out of her lips. However, he just fought through her weak struggle, placing his hand fully against her stomach as he kneaded gently into the skin, his other arm wrapping around her chest to embrace her.

“It’s just me,” he assured her. “Just let me help, please?”

In two weeks they’d have been able to find out if it was a boy or a girl. They’d been arguing about it, realising that they needed to plan things at last, because they hadn’t done a single thing so far. Oliver had seen it on the scan image just last week, however, gotten misty-eyed at the computer image of a baby-type thing that did actually have the shape of his nose. But it had been taken from them already.

She shuddered violently as the pain rippled through her, gripping tightly into Oliver’s forearm to try and ground herself to something. “It wasn’t supposed to be this way,” she groaned into his upper arm.

“No, it wasn’t,” he agreed, his voice tightening painfully.

“Oliver….” she gasped as she pain continued to grip at her.

He cradled her face with one hand, kissing her forehead. “I’m right here,” he told her. “We’re going to do this together. But you need to take the painkillers.”

She shook her head. “I don’t want them.”

“Don’t say that,” he whispered. “You’re in pain, Felicity…”

“I deserve to feel this pain.”

Their baby had died. Their baby. And he’d never gotten a chance to try and protect it.

At those words, Oliver’s head fell against hers, pressing his face into her hair. He took a few heartbreaking gasps of breath before he pressed his lips to her temple. “This was not your fault, Felicity…”

“It was,” she whined in response, trying to hide her face from him.

“You did nothing wrong,” he assured her.

“Something went wrong, Oliver,” she sobbed out. “My body did this…”

“Please, take the painkillers.”

“No.”

“Felicity…”

“My body destroyed it…” she wept. “My body killed our…”

His hands flexed quickly, turning her face to his. He could see the devastation written on her features behind the layers of pain. “Don’t ever say that,” he said firmly. “Ever.”

“I need to feel something so I don’t feel empty,” she cried.

“I can’t sit here with you hurting and do nothing. Please, for me,” he begged her. She writhed against him as another wave of pain hit her, and he repeated his request, brushing his lips against her heated skin just to feel her. His eyes were streaming with tears now, mixing with hers every time their faces met. “For me. Please. Please, take them.”

After several long minutes of agony, Felicity finally relented and took the pain medication. After she had swallowed the pills, she collapsed back against him and he held her tightly against him. She fought against the sobs that threatened to overwhelm her completely, burying her head into the gap between his neck and shoulder. “I don’t think I can do this,” she realised with a single sob.

“Yes, you can,” he nodded.

“I feel awful, Oliver…” she cried.

“So do I,” he confessed. “But I’m not going anywhere, okay? I promise you. I’m staying right here. We’re going to do every second of this together.”

Another wave of pain hit her, and she gripped onto his arm tightly, placing her free hand on her stomach. One of his hands joined hers there, knotting his fingers with hers in a way that made their wedding bands clink together, and his free hand rubbed up and down her spine. One sob gave way to another, followed by another, and another…until she was gasping for breath desperately in between and she took a single breath, holding it.

“No, no, no…don’t stop,” he urged her.

“I can’t…”

“Let it out,” he encouraged her. “This isn’t about being strong right now, Felicity. We can’t bottle this up and fight it, I won’t let you do that to yourself.”

“But-”

“But nothing,” he insisted, shaking his head. “I’m not going anywhere. I’m staying, Felicity. This is our loss that we need to mourn. We created this life together, and the only we can get through this is together.” His arms tightened around her as he gave into his own tears, a single sniff signalling the start of his cries. “I’m right here. I always will be.”

And as the sun rose, all they could do was go home. Empty. 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Tumblr: yespleasehawkeye  
> Twitter: @CheerUpLovely


End file.
